


Sacrifice

by abyss_valkyrie (Technomancer28), muse_in_absentia



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Blow Jobs, Fantasy type violence, Human Sacrifice, M/M, Magic, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-18 22:17:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 48,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15495879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Technomancer28/pseuds/abyss_valkyrie, https://archiveofourown.org/users/muse_in_absentia/pseuds/muse_in_absentia
Summary: In a world where Demons are the top of the food chain, the Shadow Demons are in charge of it all.  Sirius, the heir apparent, would really like to shake that up, with a little help from his friends, of course.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> It has been so much fun being a part of this wonderful fest. Thank you, firstly, to the WSBB Discord who put up with my whining with far more patience and grace than I deserved.  
> Also, a really really huge thank you to shaggy for the amazing, patient, extremely helpful beta work. You saved my ass!  
> And lastly, many many thanks to my partner in crime, abyss_valkyrie, for being so kind and lovely to work with, and for putting up with my constantly changing this monster. You've been the best!  
> -Muse

**_ONE DAY AFTER EXAMS_ **

Remus' startled scream was quickly swallowed by the black water below. Sirius waited a count of ten before closing his eyes and following.

Air rushed by his ears so fast he couldn't hear anything except the _whoosh_ and his own heartbeat thrumming so rapidly it was hard to separate out the beats. It hadn't looked quite that far a drop a moment ago, despite looking over the edge of the cliff from the top of the parapet. For a moment he was afraid he was going to hit the rocks on his way down, the way they loomed up, snarling at the river bank.

He was grateful that Remus hadn't realized what he was planning before Sirius had managed to throw him off the lip, because it meant he had been able to push him far enough that he seemed to be in less danger of a collision with the banks of the river. It had been harder to bring himself to jump, more closing his eyes and sort of half walking half falling off the edge and hoping Remus was able to get out of the way, and didn't hate him too much when this was all over.

The rocks flew by barely a meter away as he plummeted into the frigid water.

The impact would have been bone breaking if he had been another breed of Demon. As it was he wasn't sure of the state of his left leg, but there was nothing for it now. Hoping fervently that it was nothing more than a gash that was causing the strange burning sensation in his shin, Sirius tried not to choke on the water as he struggled to figure out which way was up. He was thankful that the water had turned out to be as deep as he had hoped at first glance, but that was looking like it might be a bit of a double edge sword now that he couldn't figure out where the surface was. Every direction was dark and he couldn't find the stars to follow them up, and the impact with the water had left him disoriented and turned askew. It was a good thing that Shadow Demons couldn't drown. It just hurt like hell when they ran out of air.

He started to kick off in the direction he thought was up, but the pressure started to build inside his ears, and his head felt like it was being squeezed beneath a rock, so he very carefully turned around so he was aiming where his feet had just been. The pressure began to lessen slightly, so he kicked harder.

Half-forgotten childhood stories and legends about a kraken-like monster that swam up the river from time to time flickered through Sirius mind as he struggled to orientate himself in the inky black waters, hoping for a break of light to crack through. The river certainly seemed deep enough to harbor some sort of monster, and if there were any such creatures he wanted to be well to the surface and oxygen before possibly encountering it.

What might have been moments later he broke through, bobbing to the surface and choking out a mouthful of brackish water, coughing and spluttering.

He struggled to keep his head above the water, black hair tangled over his eyes like a soggy billow of smoke, obscuring his vision as he tried to get his bearings, right ear still completely plugged with water. There were half rotted leaves stuck on one of his horns, dangling over his face, and he swatted at them ineffectually. His boots were heavy on his feet, but they were laced too tight for him to kick them off and they threatened to pull him back under again. The brocade of his jacket was a weight that his arms fought against for every stroke. In an effort to save some energy he flipped onto his back and hoped he would float well enough to figure out a game plan. His bloody boots were still trying to drag him down, but he was buoyant enough that it reduced the effort he was putting in towards swimming.

The sky was deepening to a ruddy burgundy except directly over the Grimmauld Palace, where the fires were still burning bright enough that the sky was nearly daylight red. He could still hear the screaming. Looking up at it from where he was floating on his back far below was giving him vertigo, so he closed his eyes for a moment until he decided that the lack of any visual grounding while he drifted farther down the river was even worse. It was like he was evaporating into nothing more than one of his shadows, substance washing away in rivulets, streaming farther towards the rapids.

"Remus?" There was no answer, and he could feel his pulse at the back of his throat as he opened his eyes and frantically looked around. "Remus!" His voice cracked, raspy from swallowing so much water, and he started coughing from the volume of it. There wasn't a second head bobbing beside his. No pale brown hair fanning out on the water, no face looking for him. No Remus.

Flipping over and struggling against the current that was dragging him towards the deeper part of the river, Sirius tried to angle himself towards the shore, dog paddling because his leg wasn't working properly. If he could just get to the shore he could use the height advantage to look for Remus, and maybe be able to take off his boots so swimming would be easier if Remus needed help.

One last try. " _Remus!_ " The silence was smothering, Sirius felt like he was choking on it, it had seeped into the water, the air, his skin was saturated with it.

Just then something grabbed at his ankle and he was going down. Water burned its way down into his lungs, rushing up his nose and down his throat until his entire face was burning from it. Still he couldn't claw his way back up, something wrapped too tightly around his leg to allow him to move.

His first thoughts were of mythical creatures come to life, and the adrenaline spike was enough to kick his foggy, waterlogged brain into action.

Forcing his eyes open despite the sting he looked down to find Remus clinging to his leg. Without thinking, he wriggled around until he was headed down, flipping them both around so that he was under Remus before surging up again and forcing Remus up with him, his shoulder jarring with the impact into Remus' ribs.

When they both broke the surface Sirius started coughing immediately, but Remus didn't. Glancing back Sirius saw that Remus' eyes were closed, his face a sickly color in the burgundy twilight, pale and red tinged. Doing his best with his injured leg, Sirius managed to drape one of Remus' arms around his shoulders, clinging to his wrist as tightly as he could to keep it there, and started edging towards shore, the added weight of a second body, and a second set of clothes, nearly more than he could handle.

They had progressed farther down the river than Sirius had originally anticipated, and the current was getting stronger the farther away from the artificial closed tributary near the palace, once a tide pool for swimming, closed off from the river proper, which hadn't been cared for in a few centuries and was now nothing more than a deep, sedate pond fed by the river. Though Sirius was grateful for the work the river was doing in getting them farther away from the palace, the speed of the water was picking up, and Sirius was fairly sure he could hear the rapids approaching much faster than he had anticipated.

"Come on, Remus, I really need you to be able to work with me here. I don't know if I can drag you to shore like this."

Remus, who was still unconscious, didn't answer.

"I really hope Shifter Demons don't need to breathe, mate, because the shore is still a long way away." Sirius' arms were burning as he talked to himself, breathing hard between words, talking to keep from screaming, barely able to focus around the way fear blurred his vision, a volatile thing that threatened to overwhelm him any moment.

There was a line of blue-scrub trees just along the shoreline, silhouettes purpled by the rapidly growing dark. Sirius angled himself towards them as best he could. Blue-scrub trees were great for shadow casting, their tangles of cobalt branches creating nooks and crevices intertwined to fabricate some of the thickest shadows. He was too far away to pull from them, just yet, and the water dampened his ability to draw shadows from the depths beneath them, refracting the light so that any shadows were twisted and volatile. Unpredictable in a way so severe that it was more risk than gain to use them, so he kept pushing towards the shore, angled to use the current rather than fight it, hoping that it didn't pull them too close to the rapids. He couldn't tell how far down the river they were anymore.

Every couple of meters he sent out a tentative thought towards the shadows on shore and tugged, but so far he hadn't been able to connect with anything. Remus was getting heavier, starting to slip.


	2. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One Month Until Exams

_**ONE MONTH TILL EXAMS** _

Remus' fingers brushed his as he handed over a plate full of nothing but three different types of potatoes. Sirius almost dropped the plate. That seemed to happen a lot lately. Any time Remus touched him Sirius forgot how to hold on to things. Or how to walk. Or sometimes how to breathe. It was starting to become a problem. Especially since he was starting to worry that Remus might notice.

Thankfully, Remus just steadied the plate, little lines forming between his eyes, but he didn't say anything. Simply scooped up his own plate and somehow managed to balance two glasses of apple juice, precariously picking his way through seats and students alike, heading for their usual table.

Sirius followed behind watching the way Remus made slipping through the crowded room look so effortless, when Sirius was so often tripping over people. Crowds really weren't his thing.

James and Peter were already at the table when they got there, plates full. Peter was eyeing the steak on James' plate wistfully, but it wasn't Friday, so only the First Rank students, the Elemental Demons, were allowed meat. Sirius almost felt bad for not taking any for himself, but he wasn’t in the mood. He settled into a seat across from James, clanking his plate down and making James grin up at him.

He was pondering if there was a way to smuggle a piece of today's steak out for Peter when Remus handed him his juice and slid into the seat next to him, their knees brushing under the table.

Pressing them together for a moment, Sirius grinned. "Hey, Pete, would you mind terribly grabbing me a piece of that steak? James' looks good after all."

Peter frowned at him, not looking up from his plate. "Have Remus do it. I'm not your servant. I already got James his."

Remus made to get up without even so much as frowning at Sirius for changing his mind so suddenly, but Sirius put a hand on his leg to stop him. "I was going to let you eat it, Pete, I don't actually want it," he hissed. "But if you don't get it for me we don't have any reason for it to be on a plate in front of you while I eat my own food. Just never mind. Next time I won't try and be helpful."

"It doesn't really work like that, Sirius, not that I would expect you to know. The gulf of difference between you and the Second Rank students is so great that you couldn't even see across it," Peter grumbled. It wasn't meant harshly so much as matter of fact, Sirius was sure, but he flinched internally anyway.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled into his plate, hair tangling on his horns as his head dipped forward; the same horns that all Shadow Demons grew in as children, but for some reason he had never managed to get used to.

It took every ounce of willpower he had not to jump when he felt a hand settle on his own, where it was still resting on Remus' knee, and squeeze. "It was a kind thought, Sirius."

"Besides," James said around a mouthful of bread. "It's not like we've ever cared much for the rules before."

Sirius thought he heard Peter mutter, "No, James, you and Sirius don't care for the rules," but he wasn't sure, and he didn't have an answer to that anyway, so he ignored it, trying to focus on eating and pretending he didn't notice or care that Remus hadn't moved his hand from where they were tangled together under the table.

"So," James interrupted loudly, very blatantly changing the subject. Snorting, Sirius couldn't help but admire James' lack of tact. "Who is ready for exams in a few weeks?"

"Oh, hell, don't bring that up, James, I'm eating!" Peter cried, pushing is plate away in mock distaste.

Sirius laughed, but he felt his stomach actually curdle. He set down his full fork and drained his juice in one go. It didn't help.

"I've started reviewing, a little," Remus said quietly, staring at his food. "I'm not sure where I'm going from here, so the higher my scores the better."

"Already?" Peter looked sort of pained at that, Sirius assumed he was wondering if he should have started as well. Even James looked sort of impressed.

Sirius, however, suddenly couldn't stomach the thought of food. Graduation. It didn't bare thinking about, and here James was, throwing it in his face and forcing him to take a long hard look at their futures. He couldn't fathom a time where they weren't all together at school like this.

"You okay, Sirius?" James asked, kicking him under the table. The jolt knocked Remus' hand away from his. It didn't come back.

"Just remembered I forgot my textbook. I'm going to run up to the dorm. Don't wait for me."

Without waiting for an answer, Sirius stumbled up from the table, knocking his chair back and almost tipping it over, before grabbing up his bag and nearly bolting from the dining hall. As soon as he was alone he stopped and leaned against the hallway wall for a moment, feeling a little silly for panicking, but unable to talk himself down just yet. He didn't want to risk getting caught just standing there, though, so he forced himself to head towards the dormitory, trying to just keep breathing and not think of anything.

The stone of the walls was rough on his fingertips as he trailed them behind himself, slowly winding his way towards their shared dorm room. He knew if he didn't pull his hand back in he'd draw blood eventually. It wouldn't have been the first time. He just wasn't sure he cared at the moment.

He took the long way back, winding past the library, and up around the strange tapestry illustrating the Battle that Burned the Sky. He always thought the Fire Demon depicted looked a bit like Lily.

Eventually, he couldn't put off returning to the dorm any longer for fear of being noticed in the halls when class started. He was a little surprised James hadn't tried to track him down so they could walk to class together and he could prattle on about how stunning Lily had looked eating her lunch or some such rot, but he was grateful for the solitude.

The stairs up to their dorm seemed interminable as he trudged up them, leaning against the wall as he climbed, wondering how the year had got away from him so fast. He thunked his head against the door before swinging it open and kicking off his boots, only having to fight with the laces for a few seconds, and flinging himself onto his four-poster bed, pulling the violet-grey blankets up under his chin, knees angular juts underneath.

It was nearly summer, and the breeze that was blowing in through the open window of the dorm, teasing its way through draperies and ruffling bed curtains was stifling, the air hot, far hotter than he was used to this time of year. He was almost immediately too warm, but he didn't quite have the energy to move out from under the covers. Or really to move at all. There was a strand of hair stuck in the stubble he had missed at the edge of his jaw and it was tickling his neck, but he didn't bother to swipe it away, just flopped back onto his back, habitually checking that he hadn't tangled his pillow cases in his horns, and stared at the ceiling.

He must have dozed off for a little while, because when he opened his eyes again the sunlight that filtered through the window had moved across the floor and was now falling on his face, making him pull his pillow out from under his head and drop it over his eyes. His denims were digging into his hip where they had twisted up.

At first he was afraid he had slept away most of the afternoon, but he was still alone, so that was a fair indicator that he had only slept for a few minutes. Maybe half a class period. It was hard to imagine James going to more than one class without checking on him after he hadn't turned up.

That meant that there were probably twenty more minutes left to his solitude before any of his roommates came looking for him, unless James had slipped out of class early again, which was possible. It wasn't as if either of them were particularly interested in The History of Demonic Classification, which mostly taught reinforcing stereotypes on why it was okay to subjugate certain species for the gains of others. Sirius had been kicked out of the class three times in the first month for insisting that humans had feelings and probably shouldn't be caged as slaves simply because that's how it had been done for the last thousand years.

When the door creaked open, however, and he pulled the pillow off his face to risk a glance, he was surprised to find that it wasn't James sneaking through, but Remus, who looked uncertain of his welcome. He was tugging the ends of his jumper over his hands, his lip caught between his teeth as he peered around the door, hair flopping into his eyes in a way that Sirius wanted to brush away for him. He tried to smile at Remus, sitting up and rearranging his clothes so they didn't look so obviously slept in. He suspected that it came out as more of a grimace than anything, however. It wasn't fair that his bad moods spilled over onto everyone around him, but he had never been very good at containing them.

"How did you get away from class?" The words came out brusquer than he intended, and Sirius winced internally. He didn't really want Remus to go away. Thankfully, Remus didn't appear to take offense, just shrugged and slipped into the room, closing the heavy wooden door behind him with a groan of aged wood.

Smiling gently, he hovered near the edge of Sirius' bed waiting to be told he could come closer. Sirius still hadn't managed to break him of the habit yet. At a jerky nod from Sirius, Remus sank down onto the edge of the bed and produced a hairbrush from what seemed to be thin air, and started combing through Sirius' hair. It was a habit he had developed when they were just kids, new to the school and both pretending they weren't terrified. Sirius had been hopeless with the tangled nest of his hair once he was living away from the family servants for the first time, he always managed to get it caught up in his horns to this day. Remus had offered to take care of it, most likely out of a sense of duty and having been newly assigned to serve Sirius, but now, years later, the act was soothing in and of itself, even when there was no purpose to it other than a little coddling. Sirius suspected it was just as soothing to Remus, although he'd never own up to it. He should probably learn to take care of it himself one of these days, but he liked the excuse to have Remus close. 

[ ](https://imgur.com/yhfI70T)

"I just mentioned that my assigned First Rank Demon was ill and that I would do more good here than in class. It's amazing how quickly they send you out of a class on The Etiquette of Your Position to actually go do your job."

Sirius wanted to rip the brush away from Remus, but he didn't have the energy, and he didn't want to hurt Remus' feelings. Instead he sighed heavily, and slumped a little.

"Seven years, Remus. Seven years I've been telling you you're not my servant."

The shrug Remus couldn't seem to stop was so self-deprecating that Sirius wanted to scream. He could almost feel the resignation rolling off of Remus in waves. "You may say that, but serving you was still the reason I was allowed into school in the first place. If I give off too irreverent an air they'll kick me out, only a few weeks until school is over or not. It will be hard enough for me to get a job from here even if I manage to finish in good standing."

School finishing. The thing Sirius was huddled under his blankets like a child avoiding. Rather than say that, though, he leaned back, pinning the arm Remus was using to brush his hair, and resting his head on his friend's shoulder. Remus let the brush fall to the bed with a small thump, and instead wrapped his arm around Sirius, who refused to admit he was clinging just a little. Thankfully, Remus would let him get away with it, wasn't going to ask Sirius to talk unless he wanted to, and he wasn't sure how to put into words how much he was dreading no longer being in school. The idea of having to leave and pretend he wanted to be who he was required to be was terrifying. And even more terrifying was the thought that he couldn't see any way out of it.

He didn't say any of that.

"You don't need a job. Come with me. We'll run away together someplace where your rank in life isn't determined by your parentage or powers, or what bloody species you are."

Remus slowly disentangled himself from Sirius and picked back up the brush, putting a wall of distance and rank between them. Sirius wasn't sure which one of them he was trying to protect. Maybe both.

"No place like that exists, Sirius."

"Maybe not here, but there are other places we could go. Other countries we could travel to. There has to be someplace where we can just be us regardless of our titles."

"Or we'd just end up someplace even worse. Someplace where I'm not even allowed to be your servant, conversations where no one can hear them, sneaking around to even remember each other. We couldn't even know each other."

Sirius felt his lungs tighten at that. To not be allowed to know Remus? It seemed an impossible predicament. One he refused to consider.

"I would never let that happen, Remus. You, James, Peter, you're my best mates, and I don't care what rules I might have to break, it's staying that way."

Something on Remus' face went soft for a moment, before he shut it off again, picking back up the brush and holding it questioningly until Sirius shook his head. He wasn't ready to be comforted again, not when it felt like Remus was using it to put walls between them.

"You'd be willing to fight Demons worse than your mother for us?" Remus shook his head slowly, his own hair flopping in his eyes again. This time Sirius let himself reach out and brush it aside. Closing his eyes, Remus leaned into the touch for a minute and Sirius felt a sense of contentment he had been missing for most of the day.

"I can't imagine anything worse than my mother." He meant it as a joke, and it got Remus to crack a small smile, but there was a tinge of truth behind his words. His hands suddenly became fascinating, rather than let Remus see any of that on his face.

The room was quiet for a minute, Sirius, studying his hands, Remus, sitting very still beside him, the breeze blowing through the room the only sound.

Then Remus whispered, "If we were to find someplace truly safe, what would it be like?"

Sirius didn't like the vulnerability he heard in Remus' voice. He didn't want his friends to ever have to feel that way. Not for the first time he wished they all lived in a world where heritage and genetics didn't matter more than who someone was.

Lifting the edge of his blankets in invitation, Sirius curled in tighter on himself, pushing the blankets away when Remus didn't take him up on the silent offer, playing it off as simply being too warm. Instead, Remus grabbed one of the pillows from behind Sirius, hugging it to himself, knocking their shoulders together gently, before curling up, as well, their knees touching, but nothing else.

"Well, we would have a small house just for us. We wouldn't need space for servants because we wouldn't have any servants anymore. They would no longer exist." Even he wasn't sure if he meant for the four of them, or just for him and Remus. Somewhere they could just exist with each other.

"Does that mean you'd have to learn to cook?" Remus chuckled, closing his eyes, cheek pressed into the pillow he was still hugging.

"I'd burn everything, but I'd try," Sirius said softly, watching some of the tension slide out of Remus' shoulders. "You'd take the piss every single time."

"Of course I would," Remus grinned, still not opening his eyes. "But I'd eat it anyway."

"You wouldn't have a choice, or you'd have to cook for yourself."

"At least I've had some training in how to do that," Remus retorted, pressing their knees together, although Sirius wasn't sure if he meant it as a nod to this strange new world they were dreaming up, or a remembrance as to why he had learned in the first place.

"Which is why you'd have to help teach me."

"I think I'd have to teach you a lot more than just how to cook."

Before Sirius had a chance to answer, however, the door banged open. Time was up. James and Peter came tumbling through together, letting back in the noise and bluster of the world around them.

"Where were you, mate?" James asked, flinging himself across Sirius' bed, landing on his legs, but just missing Remus who had dodged out of the way just in time.

"Didn't feel like it today." Sirius grumbled, shoving at James who was much heavier than his lanky frame implied. He didn't budge.

"You'll probably end up in detention when they realize you weren't down with Pomfrey at all," Peter warned, dropping himself heavily onto his own bed, tossing his bag at his feet and switching around his books for class, taking out the ones he wouldn't need for the rest of the week and putting in the ones for the morning. A pile of detritus fell out with the books, a broken quill, some scraps of parchment, a somewhat wrinkly looking apple.

"And it will be completely worth it," Sirius replied, kicking at James until he rolled over off Sirius' feet.

James sat up, frowning at Sirius, who couldn't be bothered to mimic being happy just to appease his best friend. After a moment James just nodded minutely and clapped Sirius on the knee, which was apparently the only thing he could reach without risk of getting kicked again. Not that Sirius would have kicked him a second time without reason. Probably.

"You look like you could do with some air. How about we all go take a look at that new path we found just south of the lake. See if maybe we can find that growth of Pyre Poppies that Prewet was talking about."

Next to him, Remus stretched, managing to kick James in the process. Sirius liked to think he did it on purpose, but with Remus you never really knew. James slid off the bed looking disgruntled. "Yeah, okay," Remus said, voice tight, back still slightly arched. "I've got a free period now anyway."

Peter frowned, but didn't say anything, just chewed on his lip like he wanted to argue.

"Where did you leave our cloaks, Pete?" James called, head in the trunk at the foot of his bed, digging for the cloak he apparently couldn't find.

Sirius ignored him in favor of pulling his boots back on and stoically refusing to grouse about how much work they were to lace on and off all the time. He didn't need to be mocked about his choices yet again. He loved his boots. It was worth it.

"On the cloak hook, right by the door, where they belong," Peter called dryly, shaking his head and grabbing all four cloaks, throwing them to their respective owners and hitting James in the face.

"Oi, what is with all this abuse today?" James cried, flinging a hand to his chest in mock despair, before linking arms with Sirius and Peter and tumbling them all through the door on their way outside. Remus trailed behind, but he was laughing, so Sirius wasn't too worried that he was offended.

"You just make it so easy," Sirius laughed, feeling better than he had in days. He wasn't about to waste any of the little time he had left with his friends moping. At least, not if the rest of them had any say in the matter. Most days he was glad they did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't thank museinabsentia, my partner in crime, enough for first off, writing this brilliant story and then giving me free rein to design the characters and have such an epic time! <3   
> All the art pieces have a bit of texture usage to prettify them which is from DeviantArt here: https://www.deviantart.com/asphyxiate-stock/art/Blue-Glitter-Texture-136618902


	3. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three Weeks Till Exams

**_THREE WEEKS TILL EXAMS_ **

A third piece of parchment landed in front of Sirius. He wouldn't be concerned except that they had only been in class for a few minutes. Ignoring them wasn't working so far, but maybe if he kept at it James, who was sitting two rows behind him, the casualty of getting to class late, would get the hint.

His quill scratched across the parchment in front of him, taking notes almost without his permission. It wasn't as if he was paying much attention to anything Slughorn was saying. It was all in the textbook anyway. He'd probably get back to the room later and discover that his notes were comprised entire of squiggles and sketches of nothing at all. He'd once found a rather detailed layout of the labyrinthine warren of pathways throughout the forest on the outskirts of the school grounds in place of his notes for Archaic Runic Conjuring class.

Dorcas, sitting to his left, was glaring at the little scraps, and some of that glare was spilling over onto Sirius. He wanted to hiss that it wasn't his fault James was a prat, but he didn't feel like getting another detention that week. Not after how particularly nasty the last one for skivving off class had been. Mucking out the stables for three hours was not his idea of a fair detention.

He had spent a fair bit of time grumbling about it when he had got back to the dorm, exhausted and stinking of manure, until Peter pointed out that that was normal work for someone, not just punishment. In fact, for the Second Rank students it was often simply part of their chores. Sirius had fallen quiet after that, spending a long time bathing off the smell and considering drowning himself for his thoughtlessness. It wasn't as if he didn't know that, somewhere in the back of his mind. But he was prone to forgetting that by the rules of the school, and to a larger extent, the law of the land, they weren't just all friends spending time in their dorm between classes. That Remus and Peter were effectively in training to be servants to higher ranked Demons like himself and James.

Another scrap of parchment came flying his direction, pulling him out of his thoughts and back to the class. This one hit him in the ear, and he swatted at it grumpily. Beside him, Dorcas snorted.

"Maybe you should just answer him before he gets everyone around him detention. It can't be worse than this," she hissed, somehow managing to not appear as if her mouth was moving. Sirius took a minute to try and remember what sort of Demon she was and if that had something to do with this strange ventriloquist act, but he simply couldn't remember. It had to be something elemental or she would have been relegated to the Second Rank student classes, but beyond that he was at a loss. "Besides," she continued, oblivious to Sirius' frustration. "I think it's sweet how much he fancies you. You're adorable together."

Sirius dropped his head to his desk with a solid sounding thunk, then banged it a few more times for good measure.

"I." Thunk. "Am not." Thunk. "Shagging." Thunk. "James." Thunk.

"Oh, huh."

Another piece of parchment hit Sirius in the head.

"Does James know that?" Dorcas asked, snickering.

"Shadow Black!" Slughorn barked, his voice heavy, dripping pomposity and disdain in equal measure. "Is there something that the rest of the class needs to know?"

"No, Professor," Sirius mumbled, ducking his head. He hated having his title, his classification, thrown out there publicly for everyone to hear. It didn't matter that there was no escaping having everyone know, having it addressed so casually never failed to leave a sour taste at the back of his throat. The rules for titled address may as well be placing a stamp on every student, telling them exactly how much the administration thought they were worth. The only way it could be worse was if they started calling the Second Rank students servants full out, which was really what the school was training them to be, much to Sirius' continued aggravation.

"How about you, Ice Meadows?"

Dorcas shook her head, not speaking, sliding down a little in her seat.

Ice. Sirius would have to remember that for next time. Could be a useful element to have on hand when James got too hot headed. And ice back might be just the thing he needed to keep him from getting so full of himself he spontaneously combusted one of these days.

"Well then," Slughorn continued, voice clipped, jovial tone he usually used suddenly absent. Sirius held his breath, waiting for the inevitable detention. "Perhaps we could focus on the class and save all this whispering and note passing for private interludes around the lake."

Feeling his face heat up, Sirius curled in a little on himself, the shadows under his desk whipping around his legs as he temporarily lost control of them. It was rare that he accidentally influenced surrounding shadows anymore, but the ones that were in happenstance contact with him were still sometimes a wild card when his emotions got the better of him. It was rather embarrassing to lash out like a child because the shadows could draw from his emotions. Or, more likely, he overflowed into them, pressing the emotions he could no longer contain into any nearby shadows and forcing life on them temporarily.

Thankfully, no one seemed to notice except Dorcas, and she didn't seem like she was in any mood to point it out. In fact, she was watching under their shared table with fascination as the shadows slowly climbed up Sirius' legs, twitching like living things, tugging at the fabric of his trousers, almost like pets looking for attention. Attention he didn't have the time or energy to give them, never mind that he had caused them to behave this way in the first place.

Taking a deep breath, he focused on calming himself down, counting in for eight and then out again, trying to slow his pulse, and his temper. He had the unfortunate tendency to have embarrassment translate into anger and hurt and frustration far too easily. Slowly, very slowly, the shadows wriggled their way down from his legs and gently flattened themselves back out on the floor where they belonged.

"And that is the first step in how we know that Elemental Demons are by far superior to anyone else." Slughorn was droning, his round face animated with deeply held fervor. Proof, no matter the source, that his chosen students were more important than others seemed, at least to Sirius, to matter far more to Slughorn than the actual information, or making sure students learned anything other than what he believed their place to be.

"That's a load of bollocks," Sirius muttered, unable to contain himself. It wasn't that he believed Slughorn to be intentionally teaching bad information, simply that he liked the importance of being affiliated with the highest ranked students, and only the highest ranked students, so he never questioned the information he got or what impact it might have to perpetuate it.

The entire room went silent. Apparently, Sirius hadn't been as quiet as he thought he had.

"What, precisely, is a _'load of bollocks'_?" Slughorn asked, obsequious voice dangerously low, his smile still bright, but brittle and sharp.

"The concept that anyone is superior just based on parentage and species."

Now the room had turned to face Sirius, hesitant faces flicked between him and Slughorn, waiting to see how the professor was going to take this insubordination from what was usually one of his favorite students.

Well, Sirius thought to himself, one of Slughorn's apparent favorites. They didn't actually like each other much, but Slughorn was always trying to curry favor. Sirius' family had that sort of influence.

"It has been well documented over centuries," Slughorn said, his voice deceptively quiet, suspiciously still jovial.

"No," Sirius insisted, voice growing steadier, louder. The shadows beneath his table were stirring again, but he pressed them down forcefully. "It hasn't. It has been insisted upon by the people in power for the last few centuries, with no evidence to back up their claims."

"Because it is a well-accepted fact." Slughorn reiterated, finally starting to frown.

Sirius privately wondered if this was the first time he had ever truly been challenged.

"Find me proof," Sirius demanded, losing control of the shadows beneath his desk again. They whipped out, knocking on the table in front of them, making a couple of other students jump. "Find me any documentation, evidence, that definitively proves that what you can do makes you better or lesser than anyone else. Because you won't be able to. I am no better than any of the so called Second Ranked students. They are still Demons! They are still worth a real chance! Why should I get to have everything handed to me simply because I was born a Shadow Demon?"

A few of the other students were nodding along now. James was grinning, although he did look a bit worried that Sirius was getting himself in trouble again. Sirius recognized that look. He didn't care. Seven years of being told that his friends were worth less than he was simply because of an accident of birth and he was tired of it. So very tired of it all.

Suddenly the shadows surrounding him simply dropped off, as he slumped. He had been shouting, and he was still angry, but the adrenaline had worn through very quickly. It wasn't exactly Slughorn's fault that the system was as wildly incongruous as it was. Maybe, as a professor, he should have been more willing to question it. But, Sirius had found that those in power rarely questioned how they were allowed to be there. They simply took their good fortune on the backs of others as their due.

He had spent too long living with Peter and Remus to be willing to do that anymore. Maybe as a child when he had never seen anything else, but not now.

"You can't, can you?" he asked, quiet again. "Because proof like that doesn't exist. If I'm willing to admit to it, despite where I most likely will end up, why can't the rest of you at least concede it _might_ be possible that everything we have been taught is wrong?"

Dorcas, who had been watching the shadows beneath their table, rather than Sirius or Slughorn through this entire exchange, started clapping softly.

"Sirius is right, you know," James called out, standing up so he could lean over and try and clap Sirius on the shoulder, nearly knocking himself over in the process because he couldn't quite reach.

"I think so, too," Dorcas said softly.

"And what, exactly, does where you will most likely end up have to do with this discussion?" Slughorn asked, beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead. Sirius almost felt bad for him, except that this was a conversation that had been a long time coming. He was sort of surprised that no one before him had started it.

"Because my brother would make a much better King than I ever would," Sirius said very slowly, softly, testing the words out loud for the first time. They had been floating around in the back of his mind for a long time now. Probably years. He had never let them come to the forefront of his thoughts, though, because he didn't want to dwell on the impossible. The only way for Regulus to rule instead of him would be for Regulus to kill him for the position, and he wasn't too thrilled with the idea of dying just because someone else would do a better job than him. “For that matter, so would just about anyone else. James, Lily, Remus, any of a dozen people I’ve never met, but none of them can have the job simply because my family was born to it.”

The room went deadly quiet. James was gaping at him, and Dorcas had finally looked up, meeting his eyes with a wide-eyed stare of her own. Only then did it occur to him that perhaps it wasn't actually common knowledge that he wasn't just a Shadow Demon, but of the ruling family. He had always assumed that it was the sort of thing his family would have made sure was common knowledge before he got there. To make certain that he and Regulus were treated the way his mother believed they should be treated, simply for being who they were.

He had actually forgotten that it was far more likely that his family would hide the fact that Bellatrix, originally first in line for succession thanks to being the oldest in the family, wasn't actually suited to rule and that he had become next in line of succession out of shame for Bellatrix.

He was starting to realize his mistake.

"Why didn't you tell me?" James asked, softly, sounding a little hurt.

Sirius just sighed. "I thought you knew, mate. I thought everyone knew."

Slughorn looked like his eyes were about to pop out of his head.

Taking a deep breath, Sirius had the shadows under the table hand him up his bag. He tucked his book back into it and stood. "Look, I refuse to waste my time in a class teaching me something I know to be false. Especially since it doesn't matter. I'm going to be King no matter how I do in this class. I could fail everything, be totally unsuited to the position, and I will still be forced to do it. Teach your classist, restrictive, outdated, harmful, made up information. I will no longer be listening to it."

Without waiting for a response, Sirius took his bag and carefully and slowly stood up and walked out of the classroom, hoping that James would at least have the sense to not try and follow him.

He could feel his pulse pounding in his ears, in the bridge of his nose, his left eye. As soon as he was around the corner he stopped and leaned heavily against the cold stone wall. The anger was still there, underscoring everything, each breath, each heartbeat, bubbling up into an overwhelming urge to tear everything down. To lash out at the system that told his friends they couldn't be anymore more than his servants. At the very foundations of the way things ran. He wanted to raze it all at start fresh in a world where he didn't have to feel guilty for his very existence.

Squeezing his eyes shut for a moment, Sirius stayed slumped against the wall until he no longer felt like he was going to shake apart. He had no idea how long that took. Finally, though, he leveraged himself off the wall and started walking, meandering his way through the halls of Hogwarts hoping not to be stopped by any professors. Eventually he found himself outside without his knowing that had been where he was headed.

The breeze was too warm, smelling overly sweet from the flowers blooming outside the greenhouses, but it helped to steady him that last final bit. Now he just felt silly for having stormed out of class. He had meant everything he had said, but it felt a little histrionic looking back on it, even from only a few minutes perspective. He imagined he'd feel even sillier in the morning with a full day's calm between himself and the incident.

Wondering over to the lake, he settled down on the damp grass. He briefly considered stripping off his boots and his socks and dangling his feet into the freezing water, but decided it wasn't worth the effort.

Laying back and using his bag as a makeshift pillow, Sirius dragged a few meager shadows from the slow growing Bashful Birches that were growing around the east side of the lake, so named because they were a dusty shade of pink that looked like they were blushing, until their leaves came in every spring, in varying shades of scarlet and burgundy, and set them to dancing just to give him something to focus on.

The next thing he knew there were no dancing shadows, and he was no longer alone. Blinking heavily and rubbing at his eyes, Sirius internally cursed himself for dozing off. Again. The sun was much lower in the sky, and the shadows were thicker around him.

"So, I hear we've been spending our time hobnobbing with royalty," Remus said softly, dropping back so he was lying next to Sirius, their shoulders just barely brushing.

"James?" Sirius asked, voice still raspy from his accidental nap.

"The Prewett twins."

"Well bugger. It's getting around that fast?" The Prewett twins weren't even in his class. Sirius swiped a hand across his face, as much to hide the heat he could feel rising in his cheeks as to wake himself up, though he hoped it looked more like the latter. He suspected not.

 

[ ](https://imgur.com/kKeHaXp)

"Well, that's what happens when you call out a professor for being a classist arse and then storm out of the classroom vowing to never come back, since it apparently doesn't matter if you attend classes." Remus nudged Sirius, but didn't look at him, using their proximity to just bump their shoulders together, harder than they had been pressed, then backing off again, this time retreating entirely, leaving Sirius' shoulder feeling cold.

Sirius rolled onto his side and propped himself up so he could look at Remus, catching his eyes, without getting a crick in his neck, but couldn't quite bring himself to make any words come out of his mouth. The silence was tight, pressing, stealing the air from his lungs.

"Were you actually going to tell us?" Remus asked, sounding far more resigned than hurt. Sirius sort of wanted him to be hurt by the evasion. At least it would put them closer to even footing than Remus sounding as if he believed he deserved to be lied to. Or at least kept in the dark. Sirius hadn't intentionally lied to him.

Before Sirius could reply, however, Remus shook his head and let out a slow huff of air.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, looking away from Sirius, closing his eyes. Sirius watched the play of the sun across his face. He wanted to play with the shadows that formed from Remus' nose, across his lip, but he didn't dare. "That was intrusive," Remus added so softly that Sirius nearly missed it.

It was the deferential quality to Remus' words that finally broke Sirius out of his stupor. "Nonsense. You're my friend. You can ask. James already did. In class. In front of everyone."

Remus just shrugged, and Sirius read into it the implication that Remus believed James could ask because James was at least a First Rank student never mind being Sirius' best friend, and Remus was just Sirius' hired help. The anger from earlier was slowly seeping back into his bones and he had to forcefully count out a handful of measured breaths before he could speak without shouting.

"You. Are. My. Friend. Remus, please stop behaving like you owe me something just because of how we were born. It makes me uncomfortable and it does you an injustice. I am not worth more than you are."

"You are probably the only person who believes that," Remus replied after a long moment of not saying anything at all.

Giving in to the urge that he had been fighting since Remus joined him, Sirius reached over and brushed the hair out of Remus' face. Remus caught his breath but said nothing, didn't move, didn't react at all.

They stayed that way, Remus still with his eyes closed, Sirius with his fingers still just brushing against the fringe of Remus' hair where it was flopped around his head in the grass.

Remus didn't move away, and that did funny things to the steadiness of Sirius' breathing, the hair beneath his fingers soft, soothing. He was just working up the nerve to try and tuck Remus in against his shoulder when Remus rolled away.

"You know," Remus started, soft, hesitant. "I appreciate what you were trying to do."

Sirius preened internally for a moment, until Remus continued.

"But I do wish you would think about what you say before you declaim on behalf of the rest of us."

Heat rose in Sirius cheeks, he felt it as he wavered between ashamed and indignant. "I was trying to help," he grumbled.

"I know you were, and I appreciate it. We all do. But Sirius, you speak of equality as if it were easy. You don't want to be King, you don't want the structure, the responsibility of it, so you rail against it. But if you were to leave, stop going to class like you say, they'll send me away. The Second Rank students you say you argue for are only allowed here to serve the First Rank students. Have you never noticed that there are exactly the same number of students? One servant for each worthy student, if you will. If you want to take down the system, talk to the people it will most effect first."

"What would you have of me, Remus? It's wrong, the way you're treated." Sirius sat up, hauling his knees up and curling himself around them, a question mark bow to his spine.

"Maybe," Remus conceded, "but that wasn't what you were arguing. You were arguing for yourself, because you don't want your title. The rest was simply overflow."

"That's bollocks," Sirius hissed, indignant, chest tight, head beginning to throb slightly.

"Would you care, Sirius, if you didn't know me? Peter? Would you even think about it? I imagine you had servants growing up. Did you fight for them? I'd rather be a person, even a servant, than a cause."

Remus was still laying sprawled across the grass, looking relaxed, but Sirius recognized the way he refused to look at Sirius, the tension at the corners of his eyes, the clipped edges to his words. He had never properly been on the receiving end of Remus' disappointed anger before, and it stung.

"You aren't a cause, Remus. Maybe you inspired one a little, but you aren't a cause."

Remus didn't look convinced, and Sirius sighed, but didn't say anymore. He knew that pushing the matter would just make Remus close off further, not suddenly believe him. He didn't have anything to prove himself with. No grand gestures he could make that wouldn't seem contrived.

"I'm not sure that's much better," Remus muttered, but he did roll on his side so he could look at Sirius, which Sirius took as a good sign.

The silence that settled around them wasn't as comfortable as it often was, it was smothering, and Sirius was sure he was going to suffocate, but he couldn't think of how to break it. Anything he could think to say sounded trite even inside his own head.

Shadows were thick around them, and Sirius set them spinning just to have something to keep him from feeling like the distance between him and Remus was brittle with all the jagged edges of the things he couldn't figure out how to say.

They stayed that way for a time, the sky getting darker, providing Sirius with more to play with, until he took it a step too far and tried to bounce one off the surface of the lake. The second the shadow hit the water it refracted and scattered the entire illusion, the shadows flattening back to the earth where they belonged.

Remus watched the shadows fizzle out and scatter, then sat up, blinking heavily in the rapidly convening gloam. The warning bell for curfew tolled, startling Sirius.

"I think we've missed dinner," Remus said frowning, dry to cover the fact that his eyebrows had shot up at the sound of the bell. He looked around like food was going to appear beside them.

"I wonder why James and Pete didn't come looking for us?" Sirius swatted at his hair, and Remus held out a hair-tie without even looking. Taking it, Sirius felt his cheeks heat up, but he struggled to get his hair into something resembling a neat pile before tying it back and stretching.

"Probably because James actually saw your temper tantrum and decided you needed some space."

Sirius bit back his initial reaction of arguing that it wasn't a temper tantrum. Sitting here in the lazy evening haze with Remus he could acknowledge, at least to himself, that it kind of was. "I'd like to argue with that, but I won't," he said, instead, playfully sniffing haughtily just to see if he could get Remus to laugh.

It didn't quite work, but Remus did smile back at him, which was success enough. "Maybe we should go track down some food. If you're willing to come back inside and continue on as a regular student, that is. Not sure they'll feed runaways."

The overwhelming urge was to refuse, to hold his ground and prove that these classes didn't matter at all when who you were allowed to be was dictated to you by how you were born. But Sirius stopped and took stock of the little lines between Remus' eyes, the ones that said the question wasn't as casual as he wanted to sound. The ones Sirius probably wouldn't have noticed a year ago, before he started watching Remus because he had had the terrifying epiphany that he found Remus beautiful.

"They'll really throw you out if I don't come back?"

Remus didn't say anything, but that was answer enough for Sirius. If there was even a chance they wouldn't throw Remus out he would have said it, but he didn't want to say yes, they would throw him out, and force Sirius to make a choice he didn't want to make. Sirius could see the debate flicker through his face in the way his mouth pinched at the corners, the way his shoulders tensed down in a drawn bow arch, eyes flitting between his own hands and the ground, but never up to Sirius.

Slinging an arm around Remus' shoulders as casually as he could, Sirius forced a smile onto his face. "I suppose we'd better not risk that, then. Let's go see if James was nice enough to save us any food."

"I have a better idea," Remus said, with a small grin, ducking out from under Sirius' arm and standing up. He held out a hand that Sirius gladly took advantage of, and let himself be hauled to his feet, holding on a moment too long. Remus didn't pull his hand away, which Sirius wanted to mean something, but probably didn't. It was hard to tell with Remus.

"Come on." Remus tugged on their still linked hands, a warm exclamation point at the end of Sirius arm that he couldn't help but follow.

They made it nearly to the hidden entrance near the gardens without being seen. Before they could pop open the busted lock and let themselves inside, however, Remus pulled Sirius aside, tucking them both back as far as he could into a crevice behind the storage shed. Drawing breath to talk, Sirius paused when Remus held a finger up to his mouth to shush him.

Professor Sprout, the Bloom Demon that taught herb cultivation and extraction to the Second Rank students, came around the corner from one of the greenhouses, swinging a trowel and humming to herself off key.

Remus tried to press himself in front of Sirius, as if he was ready to take the blame for them getting caught out of bounds, even though it would be worse for him than for Sirius, flattening himself back against Sirius' chest, warm and thoroughly distracting. It took a second for Sirius to remember how to form coherent thoughts, but when he managed he gathered the convening shadows around them, making them thicker, harder to see through. Remus squeezed his hand in thanks.

They stayed hidden, pressed together, breathing shallowly, for a long several moments until they were sure it was clear. As they slipped out Remus leaned in close and whispered, "This way," in Sirius' ear, making him shiver, which he hoped Remus didn't notice.

The door popped open with a little shimmying from Remus, who had the knack for it. Sirius always took far too long to get the door to open.

They slipped inside, Sirius wishing he had thought to take off his boots after all, the heavy thud of his steps not conducive to stealth.

At the bottom of the stairs Sirius made to veer off to the dormitories, only to come up short when Remus didn't follow.

"This way," Remus hissed, tugging at his hand again, both lifeline and leash. Sirius followed without asking, not sure if Remus was being cryptic on purpose or not, and not really sure he cared one way or the other.

A few halls and a set of stairs he had never even seen before and Sirius was starting to rethink this whole not asking policy he had so rashly adopted. "Are you sure you know where you're going?" he grumbled, still letting himself be led.

Remus just smiled faintly, and rapped on a heavy wooden door, which swung open with a groan of old hinges to reveal a still bustling kitchen.

"You know how to get into the kitchens?" Sirius looked around wide-eyed not sure if he was more impressed or horrified by the number of people he saw still working despite the late hour.

Before he could answer, however, Remus was approached by a young man with dark blond hair twisted up at the nape of his neck, a stark scar down one cheek, and pale green eyes that crinkled at the corners when he clapped Remus on the shoulder in greeting. Shadows crept up Sirius' legs and he immediately tamped them down. He didn't have the right to be jealous. It wasn't stopping him, exactly, but he did know better than to let it show. Much.

He was so busy gritting his teeth he almost didn't notice when a tiny waif of a girl sidled up to him with huge brown eyes and whispered, "What can we do for you?" She looked terrified to be addressing him directly, but the other workers were hanging back looking around like their sanctuary had been invaded. Sirius hated that they looked at him like that.

Thankfully, Remus spared him having to come up with an answer, since he couldn't come up with a way to say _I'm sorry that my existence makes yours worse_ in a way that didn't sound condescending.

"He's with me, Rosie. We missed dinner."

"And you brought him with you?" The blond guy asked, frowning and steeling glances at Sirius. "Why didn't you just bring him food?"

"Because he's not my servant!" Sirius snapped before he could help himself, wincing almost as soon as the words left his mouth.

There was a stunned silence in the kitchens, the only noise the crackling hiss of the fires.

"Of course he is," the same blond guy said softly. It wasn't argumentative or even disbelieving, simply a statement of fact. A thing so widely presumed to be true that to dispute it would be to claim night was day.

Remus, who had been talking quietly with a few of the workers, turned around and put a hand on the guy's arm. Sirius had to resist the urge to separate them himself. "It's okay, Stefan, Sirius has it in his head he should treat me like an equal. I can't exactly complain about that."

"Don't trust it, Remus," Stefan said lowly, glaring at Sirius. "Demons playing nice always have ulterior motives." The scar on his face caught the light and refracted any arguments Sirius might have had back at him. He shut his mouth quickly.

"I'm making your friends uncomfortable, Remus. Maybe I should go wait in the hall."

"No," Remus said, sharp and fierce, eyes feral. "You don't need to leave. You aren't doing anything wrong, Sirius." This last bit he said to Sirius, but he was frowning at Stefan while he said it.

Sirius bit his tongue on the urge to say that existing seemed to be enough. He had already stuck his foot in his mouth enough for one day. Instead, he slunk over towards the door and leaned against the wall, just barely fighting off the temptation to haul some shadows around himself to make himself less obtrusive. Even he wasn't foolish enough to think that flaunting his powers just then wouldn't be a horrifically bad idea.

Remus had wondered off to the far side of the kitchen with a few of the workers, and Sirius was trying very hard not to huddle in on himself. He wouldn't cower just because he felt uncomfortable in his own skin. Instead, he straightened up and pushed his shoulders back, wearing his dignity around him like an armored cloak.

Looking around to keep himself busy, Sirius was startled to realize he wouldn't know what to do with more than half the things he saw. He always thought cooking was throwing some food into a pot until it was hot and then eating it. Apparently, he was sorely mistaken.

However, upon a second look, it was dawning on him that the entire kitchens were staffed with humans. Not even servant Ranked Demons. All of them appeared to be completely human.

"You're _all_ human?" He wasn't quite fast enough to stop that from escaping, and he squeezed his eyes shut, wishing for the second time in a matter of minutes that he could pull in every shadow in the room and use them to just disappear.

"Of course," said a soft voice at his elbow, matter of fact and gentle at the same time. Sirius opened his eyes again to see the same waif of a girl from before. Rosie, he thought Remus had called her. It seemed Remus saying he was okay was enough for her. "This is one of the best places for humans to work. We're given fair hours, and never beaten. We even draw a wage over room and board."

It was on the tip of his tongue to demand to know why that was enough for them when Remus reappeared, two sandwiches wrapped in towels in his hands.

"Come on, Sirius," he said gently, making no indication that he had heard any of the conversation. "Let's get going. The sooner we get back to the dorms the less likely we are to get caught."

Sirius let himself be led back out into the hallway, reaching to take a sandwich from Remus, who refused, insisting on carrying them both himself. It wasn't worth arguing over a sandwich, so Sirius let him.

They were nearly back to the dormitories when Sirius stopped, feet trailing like his thoughts. "Did you know that all the staff was human?"

"Of course," Remus shrugged, slowing down, and turning to face Sirius, who hadn't started moving again. "I've known most of them since first year."

Letting the information that Remus had known how to get into the kitchens since first year turn around in his head, flipping over and sideways until he couldn't make sense of it anymore, the only thing Sirius really pulled out of it was wondering how he had found them. He didn't ask. He meant to, but when he opened his mouth that wasn't what came out.

"And why is it that – what was it, Stefan? – doesn't hate you?"

The eyebrow that Remus raised slowly spoke volumes, but Sirius refused to look away this time. Let Remus make of that question what he would. Sirius _was_ jealous, and he didn't really care if Remus knew it. He'd deal with the fallout later.

That wasn't the thing that Remus brought up, though, which startled Sirius slightly.

Instead, Remus simply shrugged. "Because I'm half human." The words were so soft that Sirius almost didn't hear them, and Remus was the one to look away.

Sirius wanted to tell Remus that he didn't care, maybe thank Remus for telling him something that was clearly information he didn't want anyone to have, but Remus looked too brittle for anything that gentle. "I didn't realize that could even happen," Sirius said, forcing himself to keep his tone light, and his feet to start moving again so he could jostle Remus with his shoulder.

Remus didn't move, or look up, just made a sort of non-committal noise and slumped against the wall. Pulling up short for a second time in a rather brief time span, Sirius leaned against the wall beside Remus, dredging up his most charming smile. "Hey, you okay?"

Nothing for a moment, then Remus shook his head, paused, nodded, then shook his head again. "I don't – could we just – "

"Yeah, come on," Sirius answer, not really sure what Remus was asking for, but ready to give it to him anyway. He grabbed ahold of Remus' hand and tugged until Remus was trailing behind him.

After a quick glance around, Sirius spotted exactly what he needed. A classroom that was closed down for the night, with only one of the small door windows, and all the lights extinguished. No late working professors down this wing.

A sharp nudge at the shadows coalesced inside the lock, and the lock popped open. Sirius towed Remus inside, locking the door behind them, and convincing a few extra shadows to block the window so anyone passing by would simply see the dark, and not the two figures huddled in the corner.

Once they were secured, Sirius nudged Remus gently, but Remus simply handed him a sandwich. As carefully as he could, Sirius pried the second sandwich away from Remus and set them both on a desk so he could tuck Remus under his arm and let him shake.

They stayed that way for a while before Remus slowly disentangled himself from Sirius.

"What are we doing, Sirius?"

Sirius froze, lungs temporarily forgetting their job, the air around him suddenly stifling. This conversation had been looming for months, if he was honest with himself, which varied from day to day. However, he still wasn't sure he was ready to have it.

"Right now? You're coming down from a panic attack caused, I assume, from telling me something you didn't plan on anyone knowing. As for me? I'm waiting till you're done so I can remind you that I. Don't. Care. You won't believe me, of course, but I'll keep saying it until I can get it through that thick skull of yours. We'll probably talk around it for a while, eventually deciding that we've hit an impasse and we'll drop the whole thing awkwardly. Maybe we can just skip that part and you can just believe me that it doesn't make any difference to me and then we can hide in here for a while and eat these lovely sandwiches you made us, and then hopefully sneak back into our room without James asking too many questions. I mean, I love the git, but he's the worst gossip I have ever met."

Still curled in on himself a little bit, Remus swatted at the hair that had fallen into his eyes, sweeping it casually behind his smaller horns, and Sirius was momentarily jealous of how easily he handled that. Even after all these years Sirius still got everything tangled on his. His frown was somewhere between resigned and disappointed, and it made Sirius want to retract everything he said and let Remus drag this into a feelings talk, but he wasn't brave enough, so he suffered through being frowned at, and didn't say anything.

Remus picked up one of the sandwiches, unwrapped it, and took a bite, letting Sirius get away with changing the subject. Sirius picked up the sandwich that was left, mostly because Remus made it for him and he didn't want to waste it. He wasn't really hungry anymore.

"My mother," Remus began slowly, talking around bites of food that he didn't seem to be enjoying any more than Sirius was, "was a human servant to a small tribe of Shifter Demons." He stopped, and Sirius could probably guess how this went, but he didn't say anything, just let Remus decide how much he wanted Sirius to know.

"She and my father fell in love. They ran away together, had me. They spent their whole lives hiding, until I was around five years old and they were found by the man who had been the leader of their tribe before they fled. Greyback." He spit the name out like he couldn't stand the taste of it in his mouth. Still Sirius said nothing, but he did lean in closer, just in case Remus wanted the comfort. "He tried to kill me and my mother. We weren't supposed to exist. We stole away one of his followers." Very casually, like it didn't matter, Remus lifted the edge of his jumper to show a huge scar down his ribs. "My father managed to fight him off me. My mother didn't get so lucky." He shrugged and took another bite of his sandwich.

"Fuck, Remus," Sirius hissed, unable to keep quiet anymore. "That's – "

"Don't, Sirius, please. I don't want your anger, or your pity. But I figured you deserved the whole story. Please just pretend I never said anything."

"If that's really what you want, Remus, I can not bring it up but I can't forget you told me. I'm grateful you trusted me with that, and a lot angry on your family's behalf."

"And you can't do anything about any of it, Sirius. It's the way the world is. I'm lucky to be here at all. So please, just let it be."

Sirius, who had nothing to say to that, just ate his sandwich in silence, trying not to stare at Remus. It tasted like guilt.


	4. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two Weeks Till Exams

**_TWO WEEKS TILL EXAMS_ **

Sirius was huddled on his bed, surrounded by books that Remus had dumped there under the guise of hoping Sirius might study. So far it wasn't working, and they were just crowding him while he tried to get comfortable without book corners digging into his hip. Remus was perched on the edge of Sirius' bed with him, but he was actually making use of his books, taking extra notes, and occasionally glaring at Sirius for not studying with him.

Peter was muttering to himself over his own books even though James had flung himself across the foot of Peter's bed and was currently trying to wheedle him into going outside for a while to stalk Lily. Finally, Peter got sick of it, and swatted James on the shoulder with his book.

"James, mate, not all of us are lucky enough to not need to study. If I want a job when we graduate I really can't go to stalk Lily with you right now. Take Sirius. Or better yet, go by yourself. She might like you better if you didn't always insist on bringing your friends to hang around with her."

Before James had a chance to reply, however, a sharp rap came at the door. When no one answered for a moment, startled, the knock came again, this time a little softer, more hesitant.

Glancing around, Sirius caught Remus' eyes for a second before Remus shrugged and called out, "It's open."

The end of Peter's bed groaned as James shuffled around to glare at the door. It was fairly well understood that no one came to their room, and the few people who did were always there by invitation. It had been nearly three years since someone had knocked.

As the door hedged its way open, Sirius was less surprised to see Regulus on the other side of it than he could have been. He was probably the only person who both had a reason to be in their room without an invitation and was foolhardy enough to try and knock.

Once he realized he wasn't going to be kicked out, or hassled, Regulus slipped into the room, more graceful than Sirius could ever hope to be, and secretly wished he could manage, and flung himself on the foot of Sirius' bed like he belonged there, careful not to dislodge Remus or his books, but taking no such care with Sirius, landing hard across his feet.

Flinging a packet of parchment at Sirius, Regulus muttered, "They gave me your mail again," without so much as a hello. Sirius couldn't blame him, honestly. He'd probably feel a little out of place surrounded by Regulus' friends, too. Provided Regulus had any friends. He probably ought to pay better attention to his brother.

Both James and Peter turned curious eyes on Sirius as he picked up the letter that Regulus had just delivered, but they were both smart enough to not say anything.

Sirius recognized his mother's crest immediately, and hesitated a moment, unsure he wanted to crack the seal and see what his mother wanted.

"It's just a letter, Sirius, it isn't going to bite," Regulus muttered, grabbing the letter from Sirius' hands and popping it open before throwing it back at him with a sneer.

"I wouldn't put it past our mother to figure out how to make her letters bite," Sirius muttered, petulant. Scanning the letter quickly, Sirius felt a growing sense of dread that he couldn't countenance. He huffed out his annoyance, instead. "A party? Really?"

Regulus just shrugged at him and scooped up the papers from where Sirius had flung them across his bed. "My heir," Regulus read, frowning slightly, his brow wrinkling the exact same way Sirius knew his own did when he was upset and hiding in the bathrooms in the hopes that everyone would leave him alone.

"She can't even use my name," he hissed, flopping back on his pillows, resigned to being demeaned through a piece of paper.

Ignoring him completely, Regulus continued to read, while Peter pretended not to be interested, James didn't even try and hide his curiosity, and Remus picked back up his book and ignored the whole thing. Or did a much better job at feigning disinterest than Peter. Sirius was watching him hoping to figure out which, but Remus wouldn't look at him.

"I am writing to inform you that I have contacted your headmaster regarding a celebration once your final exams are finished. Your entire graduating year as well as any of their servant Demons are to attend. I have also instructed your headmaster that I will need to make use of the school servants as well, as this party will simply be above what the palace servants can handle. I thought it prudent to inform you ahead of time so that you can assist in making certain that everyone attends. Your mother."

Without any conscious decision to do so, Sirius slapped the letter out of Regulus' hands with a well-placed creeping shadow, and immediately tore the letter to shreds, shadows scattering the pieces into the air and carrying them towards the open window where they could disappear. Before they could escape, however, the window slammed shut, a shadow hovering over the glass for a moment, and Regulus frowned at Sirius.

"Are you quite through with your temper tantrum?" An arched eyebrow gave the quiet question a hint of reproach that Sirius wasn't in the mood for from his brother.

"What makes her think that she has the right to just order the school to just donate it's help, not to mention, simply tell an entire year of students to show up on her whim?"

"She's the queen?" Remus said gently, without looking away from his studying.

"Apparently not," Regulus sighed, dropping back into his elbows and eyeing Sirius warily.

James got up and patted Regulus on the shoulder on his way over to his own bed, where he started digging for a hidden supply of sweets. "A Sirius tantrum can last for days, mate. Settle in." He handed Regulus a sweet, before tossing some to both Peter and Remus – who caught his still without looking up – and flinging himself on his own bed, pulling out some parchment and a quill and pretending to ignore Sirius. Regulus was kind enough to not point out that he had been dealing with Sirius for more years than James had known him. Sirius admired his restraint, and wished Regulus would teach him how to utilize it, because he knew he seemed childish and spoiled, but he couldn't seem to help himself.

"But that doesn't give her the right – "

"Sirius, stop it!" Regulus snapped, tone so sharp that Sirius froze up, and even Remus finally looked up from his book, brow slightly furrowed. "It's a bloody party, not a ritual sacrifice! Maybe you need to learn to pick your battles, big brother. Because as far as things to fight our mother on, this is probably not one of them."

"Besides," Peter cut in, voice as downcast as his face, unwilling to look Sirius in the eye, but still willing to speak up. "It's not as if most of us will ever see the likes of a royal party. Please don't ruin it for the rest of us just because you don't like the way your mother treats the servants."

Sirius felt the vitriol for his mother spilling up his throat and ready to trip off his tongue again, but there were suddenly fingers in his hair, carefully detangling the mess around his horns. He swallowed down his arguments and closed his eyes, letting Remus settle him, quite aware that everyone in the room could see how such a little thing could calm him. It was almost enough to get him to draw away, but he couldn't bring himself to care anymore. If his friends knew that Remus was soothing to him then so be it, he wasn't about to let his potential embarrassment convince him to give this up. He closed his eyes and pretended that he didn't know Remus was only petting him to diffuse his temper. It was nicer to think that it was simply because Remus wanted to.

"You know," James started, his voice too bright, too loud in the strange silence that had fallen over the room. "I always thought that your crazy cousin Bellatrix was next in line to rule since she's older."

Groaning, Sirius didn't open his eyes, but he did wave a hand in the direction James' voice had come from. He wasn't quite sure why James thought this was the best way to change the subject, but he did appreciate the sentiment, even if not it's execution.

"She was," Regulus answered before Sirius had the chance. "She was the first of the generation."

"Ah," Sirius cut in, "But remember that word you just used? Crazy? Yeah, that sort of takes her out of the line of succession."

"She's so crazy," Regulus added, "That even her sisters are precluded from ruling. Mother thought it safer to not risk an unstable ruler."

"She's just worried about the family reputation, not any damage that an inadequate ruler might cause," Sirius grumbled. The snort Regulus let out was confirmation enough that no one was going to dispute that.

Quiet descended onto the room again, no one really having any sort of suitable reply to that. Sirius was just grateful that Regulus didn't feel the need to point out that technically Bellatrix could still challenge for the right to rule. It was an archaic practice that hadn't been used in what Sirius felt was probably at least three or four centuries. Although, truthfully, he didn't keep tabs on his family history the way his mother would have liked, so it could have been as recently as the last century. He was never sure, nor did he care to be. A battle to the death seemed like something his cousin would relish the chance for. Just one more reason to dread inheriting the throne.

The fingers in his hair stilled, and Sirius pried his eyes open to see if Remus had grown bored with coddling him, but when he did he caught his brother watching them with narrowed eyes. He widened his own eyes in response, silently begging Regulus to keep his mouth shut. After what felt like an eternity, Regulus gave him an almost imperceptible nod, and turned away to look around the room with a haughty expression that Sirius only knew was false from having caught Regulus practicing it in the mirror once when they were younger.

When Sirius turned his head slightly, his horns caught on his pillow, which he didn't dignify with even so much as swearing, simply huffed and reached to tuck the pillow further under his neck and out of the way. Remus was laughing at him, when he finally managed to catch his eyes, but he was being kind enough to do it silently. Only the subtle shaking of his shoulders giving him away.

Sirius flashed a rueful grin up at him, before nuzzling his head into Remus' fingers, a spectacularly unsubtle request for the petting to resume. Thankfully, Remus didn't seem to mind the nudge, and he slowly started carding his fingers through Sirius' hair again. Humming softly at the indulgence, Sirius closed his eyes again, wishing that everyone else would leave so he could get away with using Remus as a pillow, something Remus wouldn't allow if anyone else could see them. More than once he had said he shouldn't be letting himself get so familiar, so comfortable, out of his position. It was a fight Sirius would fight until Remus got tired of it and capitulated – which seemed a long way away, sadly.

The scratch of quill on paper coming from James' bed caught Sirius' attention, in part because it was the only sound in the room besides the turning of pages from near Sirius' left ear as Remus apparently resumed his studying. It didn't sound like note taking, and Sirius wondered what it was his best mate was up to, but not enough to move from where he was currently overly comfortable and rapidly on his way to being lulled to sleep.

It turned out he didn't have to, though, when the dip of the bed indicated that Regulus had stood up. Sirius assumed he was leaving to go back to his own friends, but that theory was quickly dispelled when he heard his brother speak.

"Is that that Fire Demon from your year?" he asked, not quite able to keep the fact that he was impressed out of his voice.

That was worth cracking an eye open for. Blinking blearily Sirius rolled towards the sound of his brother's voice, Remus' fingers still tangled in his hair, tugging in a sharp startled pull.

James was beaming down at his parchment and nodding.

"Drawing Lily again, there, James?" Sirius drawled, half amused, half exasperated.

"He's getting better at it," Remus muttered, leaning over Sirius to glance at James' bed.

"He should be, with all the practice he's had," Peter piped up, grinning.

James shrugged, not looking even a little bit repentant. "Well, it's not my fault she's so beautiful that I don't want for any other muse."

Snorting, Regulus shook his head and leaned against one of the posts on James' bed, watching them all fighting to not look amused. Sirius briefly wondered if he should have asked his brother to spend time with his friends more often, but set it aside as too late now.

Peter was frowning, though. "I just don't get your fascination with her, James. I mean, you're a Magma Demon, she's a Fire Demon. It's not as if you're compatible."

A wadded-up piece of parchment went flying through the air, presumably in an attempt to hit Peter three beds away. Luckily for Peter, James was a terrible shot.

"That doesn't matter to me!" James declared, throwing his hands in the air.

Sirius snorted, but didn't say anything.

"Well, at least you can't be called the only melodramatic one around here," Remus whispered, leaning down so that his hair tickled Sirius' forehead, his breath ghosting by Sirius' ear making him shiver.

In reply, he swatted at Remus' knee, which only earned him a chuckle, and fingers scratching harder across his scalp.

"Species doesn't matter when it comes to love!" James was continuing, oblivious to the snickers from everyone else in the room.

"Umm, okay," Peter hedged, sounding torn between agreeing for formalities sake, and laughing outright at James. "But I mean, the war between the Magma Demons and the Fire Demons was what turned the sky red seven centuries again, and it's still red now. You couldn't have chosen, I don't know, a less incendiary girl to stalk?"

Waving a dismissive hand in the direction of Peter, James sighed and flung himself back on his bed. "That was a battle over resources. There is no resource shortage anymore, Peter my friend. Besides, we are simply two Demons, not entire species delegates. None of that history matters to two people. She's perfect."

The frequent, and less startling than it could have been, urge to kiss Remus left Sirius feeling like he ought to speak up and agree with James, but he wasn't quite willing to take the risk of having to explain. Instead, he gave in just a little bit, letting his best mate prattle on, and curling over on his side to tuck his face in against Remus' thigh. If he couldn't use him as a pillow, he was hoping that Remus would be kind enough to not pull away in front of their friends. The muscles in Remus' leg tensed, but the fingers in Sirius' hair didn't stop their ministrations, so Sirius took that to mean that he was going to be allowed to stay, for which he was incredibly grateful. He didn't want Regulus to get to see him being rejected. That simply seemed like too much easy fodder to feed his brother, who was slowly working his way back into the room and settling himself back down on the foot of Sirius' bed again.

Sirius kicked him gently with a toe, nodding at him when Regulus glanced his way, and flashing him a small smile that he hoped was as inviting as he meant it to be. It was hard to tell around the lethargy that was settling into his bones.

Without really being aware what he was doing, Sirius flung an arm around Remus' leg, tucked himself into it, and started dozing off, comfortable with his friends, his brother, and his general state. Sleep would allow him a respite from thinking about his mother and what she might have planned.

[ ](https://imgur.com/A18PhEC)


	5. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One Week Till Exams

_**ONE WEEK TILL EXAMS**_

A piece of parchment hit Sirius in the head, causing him to startle and blink fuzzily around the room. He had thought he was alone, since the first final exam started in just a few minutes, but seeing Remus standing in the doorway glaring at him was less surprising than it could have been. Remus had taken it upon himself lately to make certain that Sirius attended all of his classes, it was foolish to think he wouldn't at least try to get Sirius to sit his exams as well. 

"I told you I wasn't taking them," Sirius started, not giving Remus a chance to try and guilt him. He should have known better. 

There was a low growl emanating from somewhere in the back of Remus' throat, and for the first time in all the years that he had known him it occurred to Sirius that he may know that Remus was some sort of Shifter Demon, but he didn't know _what kind_ of Shifter Demon. At least it wasn't guilt. Anger was something he knew how to handle being directed at him, even if he wasn't used to it out of Remus. Maybe Remus was finally learning to not be afraid to treat him like an equal. That would be worth the anger. 

Sirius was a little shocked to see that Remus had his hands curled into fists, though. He snorted. "Go ahead, take a swing at me. At least you're finally not afraid to stop treating me like I'm better than you." 

Instead of the punch that Sirius half expected to be coming, Remus took a deep breath and uncurled his fists. The growling didn't quite stop, though. 

"Then maybe you ought to stop acting like you're better than the rest of us," Remus hissed through clenched teeth. 

"What exactly do you mean by that? I'm trying to make a point!" 

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Remus finally came all the way into the room and perched on the very edge of Sirius' bed. Sirius resisted the urge to pull him closer and just hide away until graduation, just the two of them. 

"But you aren't making any sort of real point to anyone that can make a difference, Sirius. All you're really doing is using your position as an excuse to not sit exams because you don't want to sit them. Failing all your exams and still ending up on the throne doesn't _change_ anything, it just strokes your ego. It sets you farther apart from the rest of us, not closer, Sirius, can't you see that?" 

Sirius sighed, and curled in on himself, half a parenthetical without Remus curling towards him as balance. He felt strangely afloat. Closing his eyes, he slumped all the way down, drawing his knees up and collapsing onto them. 

"I know." Remus nudged his shoulder, but he couldn't quite find the words, so he leaned into the touch for a moment while he sorted through his jumbled thoughts. Eventually he settled on whispering, "But I have to do something." It wasn't enough, but he was starting to feel like nothing was ever enough. He couldn't change the world for the people who mattered most to him. 

"If you really want to change the world, Sirius, go and sit your exams. Prove you deserve the throne you're going to inherit anyway. Then, when you have, maybe hire a few Second Rank Demons to positions of power, not just as servants. Prove they can do the job." 

"That's not enough, Remus." 

Sirius felt the shrug from where he was still pressed against Remus' shoulder, and it dislodged him just enough that he was forced to sit up and look at Remus. "It's a start, Sirius. But using your Rank and Title to skive off your exams is not the way to prove your point. It just makes you look like a spoiled git." 

"Fine," he grumbled, cheeks warm, embarrassed in a way that only Remus could ever provoke in him. "For you." 

Remus watched him for a minute, a strange look on his face that Sirius couldn't decipher, which was more common than he wanted to admit to. For a brief, crazy second, Sirius thought Remus was going to lean in, but then he abruptly pulled back, turning away and standing up. 

"Well, thank you, then, I suppose. But if you want to make it to your exam you probably ought to put on some clothes." 

Never one to miss an opportunity to try and make Remus smile, even at his own expense, Sirius simply climbed out of his bed slowly, wearing nothing but what he had slept in, which was very little, and a large grin. "Are you sure? I could sit my exams like this. Might boost my grades." 

"Your grades don't need boosting. Put some damned clothes on." 

Sirius didn't miss the fact that Remus didn't deny the possibility of his looks boosting his grades, and he winked at Remus, playing it up so he didn't have to acknowledge the fact that that made his head swim pleasantly. 

In retaliation, Remus threw a second piece of parchment at him, laughing. "Well, I refuse to be late because you want to parade around nearly nude. Get your own lazy arse to your exams." And with that, Remus turned around and slipped quietly out of the dorm, leaving Sirius alone with less than a handful of minutes to make it to his exam. 

Grabbing the closest pair of denims and a shirt, he threw the clothes on, not even bothering to check if they were clean, before stuffing his feet into his boots, and running, not even bothering to tie the laces. 

He skidded into the classroom for his History of Demonology exam with only seconds to spare, nearly tipping over his chair as he flung himself into it, garnering a dirty look from Professor Binns and a pair of snickers from the Prewett twins. Flashing his brightest smile at all of them, Sirius dug out a quill from his bag, helpfully stocked by Remus while Sirius wasn't paying attention. He'd have to remember to thank him for that later. Or possibly yell at him for feeling obligated. Probably both. 

A stack of parchment landed on the desk in front of him, and Sirius settled in for what was looking like it was shaping up to be a very long day. Damn Remus, with his logic and his beautiful smile. 

***** 

Seven hours, three exams and one drowsy lunch period filled with last minute cramming rather than the normal relaxing chatter later and Sirius was flinging himself onto his bed with a groan. "Why did I let you talk me into this again, Remus? I feel like my brain has been squeezed out and wrung dry." 

"Because you knew I was right?" Remus asked, dry and amused, twisting the corner of his mouth up despite the way his eyes were already drooping as he curled up on the end of Sirius' bed, because it was closer to the door than his own. 

"Besides," Peter groused, slumped over on his own bed fighting to stay upright, "This is only the first day." 

Sirius considered finding the balled-up piece of parchment that was still on his bed where Remus had thrown it that morning and flinging it at Peter, but that required more energy that he was willing to expend at the moment. "Bugger that," he grumbled, the only real response he could muster up. 

"We should probably go and get some dinner," James offered, looking around at the rest of them. Sirius caught his eye and shook his head. 

"I'm definitely not moving. No food in the world is worth getting back up again right now, James. Sorry, mate." 

"You're really going to skip dinner?" James huffed, tossing his bag at the foot of his bed with far more energy than Sirius felt necessary, or even possible. He winced and groaned, wondering how James was still on his feet. 

"If it's that or move again, then yes, probably." 

Giving up the fight, Peter collapsed onto his side, using a stack of textbooks as a pillow despite his pillow being directly behind him. "How are you still standing, James?" 

Sirius, who decided that having thought that loudly enough that Peter asked it for him was more than enough energy expenditure, dropped over and curled himself around Remus, not quite daring to drop an arm around his middle, leaving just a whisper of space between them. He could feel Remus breathe. 

"Because I was writing, not running. What is wrong with the rest of you today?" James sighed, flinging himself back onto his own bed hard enough to bounce. 

"Because my brain runs my feet, and it's tired," Sirius mumbled, words muffled into Remus' shoulder. 

When the pillow hit the back of his head Sirius wasn't even surprised, just pulled it around and tucked it under his head, making sure there was enough room for Remus to share with him if he wanted. Remus didn't move any closer, and Sirius pretended that didn't bother him. 

"Come on, Pete, you want dinner, don't you?" James was starting to sound wheedling, but Sirius wasn't falling for it. 

"Eat on your own, git. Maybe Lily will finally take pity on you and grace you with her company," Sirius grumbled. 

"But that's boring!" Sirius bit his lip on pointing out that James didn’t even consider the option of Lily joining him. He was glad to see that James was learning. 

Sighing almost imperceptibly, Remus sat up, jostling Sirius who had to fight the urge to hold on and keep him there. He didn't have that right. 

"I'll just make a quick trip to the kitchens," Remus said softly, sounded weary beyond the ability to put words to it. And yet he stood up, and Sirius suddenly wanted to take back all of his complaining. 

"I'll go with you," he offered quickly, sitting up so fast he made his head spin. 

It took a monumental effort to ignore the smirk that James was throwing his way. Apparently, he was less subtle than originally thought. "I thought you were too tired to move, Sirius." 

Sometimes Sirius could understand why Remus rolled his eyes at them so often. "I am, James. But so is Remus. He has no obligation to bring us food just because we're too tired to move. If he is going to go anyway, I'm going to help." 

"That's actually his job, Sirius. I'm not sure you should be helping. I don't think you'd exactly be welcome in the kitchens." 

Remembering his last trip to the kitchens Sirius wasn't entirely sure he was wrong, but not for the reasons Peter was stating. "Look, I've been saying for seven years that I don't want servants, I want friends, and I still stand by that. I'm not letting Remus fetch my food when he's not any less tired than I am. If the rest of you can live with it that's on you, but I'll help get my own food." He stopped and took a deep breath. It wasn't worth getting worked up with his friends, they knew how he felt. It wasn't Peter's fault he had been taught from birth to follow the rules, to behave as best as he could to try and get himself a better position later in life. They had all been taught that to some degree. He was just thought Remus was worth breaking the rules for. "If that's okay with Remus, that is," he added as an afterthought, realizing that he had sort of invited himself along on this errand run, and maybe Remus didn't want his company. 

"I'll always be glad of the extra hands, Sirius." The smile Remus sent his way was faint, colored by Peter's words, but it was there, so Sirius smiled back and reached for his boots, finding that letting a few shadows tie them for him took less energy than bending over. James snorted at the display but didn't say anything. It wasn't as if he had never heated the stone floor of their dorm room in the winter so he didn't have to get out of bed onto a cold floor. 

Once they were in the hallway, Sirius dragging a little, but trying not to let it show, Remus turned to him with little lines between his eyes, hair falling in his face. "You didn't have to come with me to prove a point, Sirius." 

Sirius sighed, but didn't let his disappointment show on his face. At least, he hoped he managed to hide it. He really probably didn't. Thankfully, Remus didn't comment on it. "I wasn't trying to prove a point. No one wanted to move, not even you. It's not your job to take care of everyone. You didn't have any more obligation to move than James did." 

"Yes, it is, Sirius. I know you don't want it to be, and that means a lot to me, it really does, but the rules haven't changed just because you want them to. It is quite literally my job to take care of everyone." 

Fighting off the urge to shake Remus, Sirius turned and stomped off in the direction he remembered the kitchens being. He had only made it a few steps however, when Remus sighed and grabbed his shoulder. 

"Unless you're storming off in a strop, you're going the wrong direction. If you are, please let me know so I don't try and follow you." 

Shoulders slumping, Sirius turned around. "No, I'm just hopeless without you, apparently." 

Remus chuckled, not letting go of Sirius as he directed them in the complete opposite direction Sirius had gone, taking a quick left down a hallway Sirius would swear he had never seen before. 

Hoping to remedy the mood, Sirius grinned. "This is why you will just have to teach me everything about taking care of myself. That way I won't need any servants." He didn't add that it would keep Remus with him indefinitely while he learned. He didn't think he had to. 

"Do you even have the right to choose your own servants, Sirius?" Remus asked softly, refusing to look at Sirius now. 

Sirius, who hadn't thought that far ahead, shrugged, sighing heavily. "I honestly don't know. But that would be something worth fighting with my mother over. If it meant not having to lose you when we graduate, I would fight with her until my last breath." The fact that it might come to his last breath was implied, and Remus just nodded sharply, a final exclamation point on the conversation that Sirius didn't know how to move past. He let it drop, continuing to follow Remus through hallways he didn't recognize until they made it to the door to the kitchens. He at least recognized that much. 

Remus pushed the door open, but Sirius hesitated before following him inside, remembering his welcome the last time. He didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable again. Himself included, and being reminded how unwelcome he was certainly didn't lend itself to feeling welcomed. 

They were barely through the door when Stefan came sidling up to Remus, smiling a little more invitingly than Sirius was comfortable with, his light green eyes just as bright as last time. He ignored Sirius thoroughly. 

"Remus! Didn't expect to see you back during finals week. What can I do for you tonight?" The way he emphasized the "I" made Sirius' skin crawl. The lines were slowly connecting and he was starting to not like the picture they were drawing. "And why is _he_ here." This last was said with a sneer in Sirius' direction that had Sirius simultaneously bristling and wanting to cower back against the wall. 

There was a brief moment where Sirius hoped Remus would brush the git off, but Remus laughed, clapping Stefan on the shoulder and smiling in a way that Sirius hadn't seen in a while. It was a full smile, the kind that Remus used to give him before Sirius had started pushing the boundaries of their friendship, trying to make Remus stop feeling like a servant. 

"I wouldn't worry about it," came a soft voice to Sirius' left. "They're good friends, but he hasn't forgotten you're here." He startled, ashamed that he had been so caught up in watching Remus with this other guy that he hadn't noticed the young girl slip up beside him. Her hair was shorter than the last time he had been in the kitchens, the ends ragged and singed looking. Rosie, he thought her name was. He almost asked her if she had somehow managed to burn her hair off, but managed to catch himself just in time. Here she was trying to be kind to him, despite the wary looks of all the other kitchen staff, and he nearly put his foot in his mouth. 

With a sigh that probably told this young woman exactly how he felt, Sirius tried to smile at her. "I'm not worried. Just exhausted from finals." 

She frowned at him, looking like she wanted to say something but wasn't sure if she should. 

"It's okay," he muttered, keeping his voice down so Remus couldn't hear him. "You can say anything you want to me. I promise not to get angry." 

The smile she flashed up at him was bright and sunny. "I thought if Remus was friends with you, you had to be nice, but Stefan always says to not trust the Demons. And he knows better than I do." 

Sirius laughed. "Oh, no, I'm regularly not nice at all. But I do try to be. I want to be. Sometimes I'm just stupid about what nice is." 

That made her laugh, full shaking laughter that got a few of the other kitchen staff looking at them. "I think I like you," she declared emphatically, grinning up. "You can come back any time, no matter what Stefan says." 

Stefan chose that exact moment to turn his attention back to Sirius, still standing too close to Remus for Sirius' taste. 

"Rosie!" he snapped, sharp edges and cutting words. Rosie flinched and dropped her head. "What have I said about being friendly with the Demons?" 

"To never trust them," she mumbled, eyes shifting between her torn up boots and the polished stone floor, fingers fidgeting with the hem of her faded blouse. 

"And you," Stefan reared around on Sirius. "Coming in here like you have any right to one of the few spaces that's ours, enticing the staff with your mysterious eyes and your charming smile. Don't think I know what your kind do. You stay away from her." 

Abruptly Sirius was exhausted to the bone, not just from his day, but from his life. He ignored the towering rage of Stefan entirely and turned back to Rosie. "Don't let him bully you just because he thinks his experience is more important than yours. There are Demons out there that will be awful to you, he isn't wrong. But it won't be all of them. And even if it were that doesn't give him the right to treat you just as badly. You're better than that." He ruffled her shaggy hair and gave her a small smile before turning to Remus. "Remus, can we just get what we came here for and go, please? I'm sure James and Peter are wondering what's keeping us." 

"You don't need to let him boss you around, Remus," Stefan insisted, a hand sliding up Remus' arm in a possessive way that made Sirius want to smack it away. Instead he just leaned against the wall and waited for Remus to decide. 

Remus turned and looked at Stefan with narrowed eyes, looking like he had never really seen him before. "He's not bossing me around, Stefan. It's kind of you to look out for me, I suppose, but he just asked a question." 

"It's never just a question with them, Remus, you should know that." 

After a few deep breaths to try and maintain his composure, Sirius snapped, whirling around to face Stefan head on. "Listen, Stefan," he hissed, not realizing that the shadows had started to swirl around his legs in wisps and tendrils until one of the other kitchen staff members gasped out loud. "I haven't done anything wrong. I just asked my friend a question. I'm not the one trying to tell Remus what to do here. The only person I see doing that is you. I would never presume, but apparently you don't have any such reservations. I refuse to stand here and watch you treat my _friend_ like he isn't smart enough to make his own choices." Breathing hard, Sirius turned to Remus, trying to keep his voice as steady as he could, forcing the shadows around him back down to the ground where they belonged and wishing, not for the first time, that he had better control than the average child when he got emotional. "Remus, you can be friends with whoever you want, but I refuse to stand by and watch him treat you like this anymore. I'll be in the hall whenever you're ready." 

Without waiting for a reply, Sirius turned and stormed out of the kitchen, realizing that on some level he had let Stefan run him out, but too angry to care. 

The cool stone at his back was doing wonders for cooling his head, but Sirius was still seething when Remus came skulking out a few minutes later, arms laden down with food, not looking at Sirius. When Sirius tried to help carry some of the food, even going so far as to reach to take some, Remus simply sidestepped him and refused to let him take any. 

They walked in silence for a moment, Sirius not sure what to say and Remus frowning to himself. Finally, Sirius couldn't take it anymore. 

"Just say it, Remus. Please. I'd rather you yell at me and get it over with than – whatever this is." 

"And why do you think I'm going to yell at you, Sirius?" Remus' words were clipped, pinched tight and held close, like he wasn't quite sure he should be saying them at all. 

Sirius sighed, squeezing his eyes shut very briefly, before jogging a few steps to keep up with Remus who hadn't waited for him. "Because I overstepped. Again. And I'm sorry for that, but I couldn't take it anymore." 

Remus shook his head but still refused to look at Sirius. "I appreciate the sentiment, Sirius, I really do. But I don't need you to fight my battles for me." 

"I know," Sirius muttered, trying to sound repentant and not let the anger that hadn't dissipated seep through his words. It wasn't Remus he was angry with. "And I wasn't trying to, not really. I just lost my temper." 

"Again." Remus sounded far more resigned than Sirius liked, and he especially didn't like that he had put that tone in Remus' voice. "You lost your temper _again_. And I thought I made my opinion clear the first time on you speaking for people you haven't checked with first." 

Pulling up short, Sirius blinked hard a couple of times, frustrated that that was truly what Remus thought. "I'm not sure how you can think that my taking offense at his accusations against my behavior had anything to do with you, Remus!" Sirius finally snapped, keeping his voice low so they wouldn't be caught near the kitchens with armloads of food, even if they were still well before curfew. He glared at the shadows that were whipping frenzied around his ankles so he wouldn't glare at Remus. It was a struggle to maintain, and he used his focus to try and convince the shadows to settle without having to calm his anger. At least it was good practice. 

"Because you used me as the battleground!" Remus hissed, finally spinning around to face Sirius, who only noticed because he could see Remus' scuffed shoes creeping closer, toes now pointed towards him. He refused to look up. He wasn't sure if he would see anger or disappointment on Remus' face, but he was fairly sure he couldn't take either right now. 

"I'm not the one who dragged you into this, Remus. Although, I got the impression that you don't mind where Stefan wants to drag you." Sirius regretted his words almost as soon as they came out of his mouth, but it was too late. He looked up to see Remus looking as startled as if he'd been slapped. 

"What is that supposed to mean." It wasn't really a question, and Sirius didn't like the flat, dead tone that Remus had adopted so quickly, like it had always been just one wrong comment away and Sirius had finally pushed him over the edge. 

"Fine, you don't have to tell me that you slept with him," Sirius suddenly couldn't breathe, the words coming out syrup thick and as substantial as the shadows he manipulated. 

"I shouldn't have to, Sirius, it's none of your business who I sleep with." Remus looked like he wanted to huddle down, curl his arms over his chest the way he sometimes did when he felt he had overstepped himself, or that he was being singled out, except that he was still carrying all the food that he was refusing to let Sirius help with. 

Sirius didn't have it in him to answer for a minute, the confirmation a little harder to swallow than he had originally thought it would be. He had expected anger, not this overwhelming ache engulfing everything. "You're right, it's not. But you have to admit, he's a bit of a git." Sirius hoped he didn't sound as betrayed as he knew he had no right to feel. 

Snorting, Remus unhunched a little and started walking again. "You're right, he is. But so are you and I still put up with you." Sirius made himself chuckle, but he was quite sure it sounded forced. "Besides, it was nice to be wanted for me, not one little piece of me that will never be what someone wants. Not because I can't say no, or because I'm the most convenient option, but just for me. I don't get that much." 

"I do," Sirius whispered, torn between wanting to shout it at Remus, and regretting that he said it at all. He cringed when Remus turned to look at him, one eyebrow up. "Want you for you," he added, feeling strangled with the words, wishing he hadn't said them. 

"I know," Remus shrugged, smiling a little sadly. "But the next king of all Demon-kind will be expected to have an heir, not a male lover, especially a half human one. It's simply not something we can have." 

And without giving Sirius a chance to argue Remus turned and marched off towards the dorm with all the food, Sirius' heart, and any hope he might have had. He didn't follow.


	6. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two Days Till the End of Exams

**_TWO DAYS TILL THE END OF EXAMS_ **

The punch to the face caught Sirius off guard and he went reeling backwards, back slamming into a Bashful Birch. The pink paper bark was peeling, and it was sharp through his thin shirt.

Head bouncing off the tree behind him, Sirius blinked a few times to clear his vision and saw James and Peter both on their feet looking ready for a fight. Remus was standing behind them, frowning, still clutching his bag to him, and Sirius' as well, Sirius noted blearily.

He didn't have much time to see what his friends were doing, though, because he suddenly had a face full of angry Lestrange. The younger one, not the one who was marrying his cousin. He couldn't ever keep their names straight.

There were red blotches high on Lestrange's cheeks, and his eyes were bulging as he let out a putrid gust of breath in Sirius' face, making Sirius cough and reel back, hitting his head on the tree a second time.

"What do you want, Lestrange?" Sirius growled, shoving back so that Lestrange stumbled backwards and gave Sirius enough space to stand up straight. He was startled to see he was taller than Lestrange, who had always seemed larger.

A small crowd had gathered around them. No one had ever been physical with Sirius before, and apparently most of the students in the area were fascinated to see what would come of it. The pranks and childish games that they had all participated in over the years had never had the air of menace about them that Lestrange was emanating now.

"Just to see you bleed," Lestrange growled, righting himself and advancing towards Sirius again, fist pulled back for a second blow. Reacting on instinct, Sirius caught the fist with a tendril of shadow before it had the chance to connect with his face again.

Over Lestrange's shoulder, Sirius saw that, despite James' fighting stance, it was Remus who had taken a step forward when Lestrange went to land his second punch. Sirius wasn't sure what to make of that. Things between them had been strange for the last few days, ever since their conversation outside the kitchens at the beginning of finals.

Unfortunately, distracted as he was, Sirius didn't see the shadows whipping around his legs until they had been swept out from under him, hit at the ankles, and he hit the ground, hard.

"Did you forget, Black, that I'm not impressed with your little tricks? I can do that, too."

Sirius sat up, head spinning a little, and tried to lash out with another shadow, but it was blocked by one of Lestrange's own shadows.

James put himself between Sirius and Lestrange, fingertips glowing red hot. He couldn't throw a fireball like an actual Fire Demon could, and unless someone wanted to levitate a rock over Lestrange's head for James to melt onto him, he wasn't actually going to be of much use, but Sirius doubted that Lestrange knew any of that.

"Maybe you should back up a little bit, Lestrange," James instructed, voice steady and clear, despite the wild look Sirius could see in his eyes.

"Not until I make Black suffer," Lestrange rebutted, slowly trying to inch James' own shadow up off the ground to swat at Sirius.

Sirius' head was clearing from his impact with the ground, however, and he reached out and snatched the shadow away, yanking while Lestrange still had his energy poured into the same shadow. As a result, Lestrange tumbled forward, when the force he was exerting suddenly caved out from under him. Sirius knew from experience that it was nearly as hard a hit as a physical blow, and he watched with no small amount of satisfaction as Lestrange nearly landed on his face.

A hand appeared in his face, and Sirius risked glancing up to see that Remus had appeared at his side. He took the hand and let Remus haul him to his feet, where he turned back to face Lestrange, not willing to take his eyes off him for that long.

"What can you possibly think I did to you, Lestrange?"

"Existed!" Lestrange shouted, causing a few of the bystanders to back up a few steps, wary and curious in equal measures.

Remus was slowly trying to sidle in front of Sirius, as if he thought he should be protecting him. Sirius caught him, stilling his movement with a light touch, just the brush of his fingers on Remus' wrist as he tried to subtly change their positioning so he would be in the frontline. Sirius pretended not to notice that it was the first time they had touched in five days. Frowning, Remus let himself be stopped, but he had little lines between his eyes that Sirius recognized as him not being happy about it.

"It isn't fair that you get the highest grades in everything simply because of Rank and Title," Lestrange was continuing, voice climbing in volume until he was nearly spitting with his words.

James took a step back, out of the line of direct fire. Stepping up, Sirius took his place, holding a shadow at the ready to be used as a shield if need be. Either from attacking shadows, flying fists, or simply spittle as Lestrange got more and more worked up.

"Do you honestly think that Sirius got good grades because of anything other than being the cleverest one here?" Remus asked, voice quietly carrying over Lestrange's outburst and making Lestrange pause and glare at him. "Because if we were to follow that logic," he continued, not letting Lestrange find his voice again, "you would have had the second-best grades, as the only other Shadow Demon in our year. And somehow, I don't believe that's the case."

A shadow came out of nowhere and smacked Remus across the face, causing a trickle of blood to run from the corner of his mouth.

"Did I say you could speak to me, servant?" Lestrange hissed, eyes flickering around, breathing hard. Suddenly Sirius realized it wasn't anger, but pure exertion of holding on to the shadows that was causing Lestrange's demeaner.

With a roar of outrage, Sirius lashed out and obliterated the shadow Lestrange had been tenuously managing to keep his grasp on, little flecks of shadow bursting out, crystalline and brittle, melding with various shadows around them. "Don't you dare touch him!" he shouted, moving so he was firmly in front of Remus, who huffed in annoyance, but didn't say anything.

 

[ ](https://imgur.com/hgyUrkW)

Very abruptly, the entire surrounding area darkened, a midday dusk, as every shadow in the near vicinity coalesced into one dark mass overhead. A few people screamed, but no one dared to move. Drawing himself up to his full height, Sirius took a step towards Lestrange, then another. Slow. Deliberate. Lestrange very sharply went still, trying to pull at even a little bit of the descending shadow cloud. Sirius didn't let him have an ounce. It was growing darker, dim enough that it was getting hard to see, but still Sirius pressed forward, nearly blotting out the sun in his anger. "Your behavior is abysmal, Lestrange," Sirius said quietly, voice curling venom around the shape of each word. Lestrange stepped back as if he'd been struck. "Perhaps your grades would have been better if you had spent more time studying and less time abusing those you somehow got it into your head that you're better than. But lack of ability on your part is no reason to take out your impotence on others. Get out of here before I get any angrier."

As suddenly as they had convened, the shadows scattered, light coming back to the grounds around the lake. The deathly silence broke as Lestrange turned and scampered off towards the school. Once he was gone, the watching crowd dispersed as well, a few throwing nervous glances back towards Sirius.

The only people who stayed around, besides James, Peter and Remus, were Dorcas Meadows, who still had a hand clamped onto Lily Evans' wrist, effectively keeping Lily there regardless of her wishes. Dorcas was grinning, but Lily was watching Sirius with narrowed eyes.

Sirius was less surprised than he could have been when it was actually Lily who spoke first. "That was a kind thing to do, Black. Terrifying, but kind. Didn't expect you to stick up for Second Ranked Demons like that."

"Sirius is strange like that," Regulus drawled, startling Sirius, who hadn't realized he had been one of the watching crowd.

Frowning, Sirius turned towards his brother. "You think it's strange to – "

"Calm down, brother," Regulus murmured, leveraging himself away from the tree he had been leaning against and sauntering over, as if the entire spectacle he had just watched had been nothing more than a quiet afternoon outing. "You know that isn't what I mean at all."

"Do I?" Sirius grumbled, suddenly feeling petulant now that his anger was slowly dissipating.

"Well, I didn't," Lily said, tucking her hair out of her face, frowning at Regulus.

Regulus shrugged at her, not even turning to face her. "It doesn't really matter to me if you understand me or not."

"Because I'm beneath you?" Regulus seemed impervious to the brittle tone in Lily's voice, but Sirius couldn't help but notice the sparks crackling at her fingertips.

"I realize I'm not one to talk or anything, but be careful there, Evans. You're sparking."

Glancing down as if she hadn't noticed, Lily turned nearly the color of her hair, and clenched her hands into fists, extinguishing the tiny flickers of flame.

Sirius pretended he couldn't hear the lovelorn sigh James let slip out. Watching the way Lily clenched her jaw at the sound, Sirius bit his lip to keep from smirking. At least she was noticing James, even if it wasn't the way he wanted.

"No," Regulus cut in, either oblivious to or uncaring about the scene playing out silently. "Because I don't know you and your opinion of me doesn't matter to me."

"Your opinion matters to me!" James piped up, face hopeful, combing his fingers through his hair in what Sirius knew was a nervous gesture that James had somehow managed to always make look cocky anyway.

Sirius snorted and leaned back against Remus where he was still standing partially behind him before he remembered they weren't doing that right now. Remus didn't move away, and Sirius took a shuddering breath that he was sure Remus could feel where they were just barely touching shoulder to shoulder.

"It probably shouldn't," Lily replied, gaze fading out and settling somewhere middling, focused on something no one else could see. Probably her own thoughts, if Sirius could guess. Dorcas elbowed her gently, though, and Lily shook her head and forced a smile that was tight around the corners. Sirius could relate.

"So, ladies," Peter cut in, clearly trying to change the subject. It wasn't subtle, but Sirius was thankful anyway. "Are you looking forward to the big graduation party?" Okay, so maybe Sirius wasn't as thankful as he had been a moment earlier.

Frowning, Sirius tried to shake his head at Peter, but Peter wasn't looking. He was too busy grinning up at Dorcas, very nearly bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"I mean, I'm not exactly going to say no to a fancy party," Dorcas smiled, causing Peter to beam.

"See, Sirius, it's going to be fine."

Behind him, Remus tensed, and Sirius pressed their shoulders together harder before taking a deep breath and slumping forward, glaring at Peter.

"You don't want to go to the party, Sirius?" Dorcas asked, ignoring the way Lily frowned at her familiarity with Sirius.

"Yeah, Black," Lily added, emphasizing the _Black_ part of it, just to see Dorcas look at her, eyebrow furrowed. "Why wouldn't you want a party all about you?"

"Here we go," James muttered, turning resolutely around and heading back towards the school, Peter trailing behind, looking disappointed that the conversation had run away from him so quickly.

When Remus turned to go with them Sirius sighed and started to follow, surprised when Dorcas, Lily and Regulus all tagged along.

"It's not a party about me," Sirius grumbled, tired of repeating himself. Tired of the fact that no matter how many times he said it, he still had to repeat himself because nothing changed. "It's a party for my mother to show off her power, nothing more."

Regulus huffed off to his left, but didn't actually say anything, which was comforting. At least he knew that Sirius was right about that, whether or not he agreed with Sirius about anything else.

"That's enough, Sirius!"

Sirius pulled up short, eyebrows climbing up his face, when Peter whirled around, voice raised, shoulders tensed, mouth a tight slash across his face. Peter had never raised his voice to either him or James even once in the seven years Sirius had known him.

"We all get that you don't want this party, that it's all about your mother, and not you. But you know what, Sirius. It was never about any of the rest of us, and we still want to go. I've been busting my arse to make sure this goes as smoothly as possible because this will be the first, last and only time I will ever get to see the inside of someplace as fancy as a palace. I even risked getting caught impersonating Filch just to speak with Second Rank Demons in other dorms after curfew. Twice. This was supposed to be your responsibility to set up, but if I hadn't done it it wouldn't have happened. So please shut the bloody fuck up about how it isn't exactly what you want and stop trying to ruin this for the rest of us!"

Everyone was staring at Peter, who had gone a little red in the face, but it was Regulus who broke the silence.

"You can impersonate Filch?"

Without saying a word Peter sort of shimmered and suddenly Filch was standing in front of them. Then he shimmered back with a small shrug. "Illusion Demon," he muttered, suddenly refusing to even glance in Sirius' direction.

Sirius knew he should apologize, but he wasn't entirely sure how to do that without sounding insincere. It wasn't that he wasn't sorry he upset Peter, but he also meant what he said about not liking that his mother was throwing her power around and ordering people to appear on her whim. It wasn't that he wanted the party to be about him, it was that he didn't want his mother to think she had the right to mandate attendance just to show off. It seemed he hadn't made that part of it as clear as he had thought, though.

Before he had a chance to say anything, though, James sighed and slung an arm around Peter's shoulders. "How about we go show off for the ladies for a little while, let you calm down, mate."

Peter frowned, but just nodded and followed James back in the direction of the lake, even though they had been heading inside just moments earlier. Dorcas flung a small grimace in Sirius' direction before she and Lily followed. Sirius bit his tongue to give James the chance to have Lily spend time in his general vicinity of her own choosing.

"Well, that was fun," Regulus drawled, watching the small group disappear into a small copse of Bashful Birches. "But I think it's time I finished packing. See you at home, big brother."

Sirius couldn't do much more than grunt in response before Regulus had slipped inside the school and wondered off in the direction of his dorm.

Suddenly alone with Remus, Sirius let his head thunk against the door that Regulus had just disappeared through. "Go ahead, tell me how self-absorbed I'm being. Let's just get it over with."

Remus watched him with a closed off look on his face for a long moment, and Sirius fought the urge to fidget. "Come on, have you started packing yet?" Was all Remus said when he finally broke the silence, eyes going a little soft around the edges. Sirius wasn't sure if he was grateful for the respite, or if he was being coddled. For once in his life, he simply dropped it.

"What constitutes having started?"

Remus rolled his eyes and smiled. It was a tiny smile, barely a lifting of the corners of his mouth, but it was the first real smile Sirius had seen out of him since the beginning of exams. "You probably should have started a week ago, Sirius. It's a good thing I'm around to organize you, because you'd be lost if I didn't do it for you."

"Please don't try and pack for me, Remus. Please. I don't want you to be my servant!" Sirius was somewhere between shouting and crying, tired of the number of times he'd had to repeat that sentiment.

"Fine," Remus snapped, shattering what was apparently a far more tenuous grasp on civility than Sirius had realized. "Since, by rule, that is the only reason I’m here, I’ll go be someplace else. If you don't want my help you can pack for yourself, but you can’t have my company, either. I'm going back out to spend time with people who actually appreciate my company right now, instead of someone who is going to sulk about not getting their way and take it out on me. You know how to find me when you're done being in a strop."

And before Sirius had a change to think of a way to reply to that Remus had turned and left to find James and Peter. The sight of his friends storming out on him was becoming far too familiar for Sirius lately, and he was starting to think that maybe he should just let them go indefinitely. They'd probably all be better off. He didn't bother to follow Remus, just turned and slowly headed up to his dorm to start packing.


	7. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still Two Days Till the End of Exams

**_STILL TWO DAYS TILL the END OF EXAMS_ **

When the door to Sirius' favorite sulking hideaway creaked open he was expecting Remus, who he thought was the only person who knew where to find him. Instead, he was startled to see his brother slinking his way through the door, looking like he was waiting to be yelled at for invading.

Nodding at the spare seat on the strange low bench that ran the length of the window along the side of the small room, Sirius gestured for Regulus to join him, but didn't say anything. He couldn't take the strange pitying look on Regulus' face, so instead he focused on his knees where they were tucked up under his chin. Picking at the old blue fabric that was barely clinging to its life as a bench cover, Sirius sighed, and pressed his cheek into his knee so hard it hurt, but he didn't stop, just closed his eyes and let the bruising sensation ground him and keep his thoughts from flying off in every direction.

Regulus sank gracefully down next to him. Sirius didn't even need to look up to know that his little brother had his long legs casually stretched out in front of him. Regulus always seemed to be sprawling; taking up as much space as he could, in long, taught lines, rather than tumbling piles like Sirius. Sometimes he wasn't sure which one of them was older, and Sirius hated his brother a little bit for being everything Sirius was supposed to be but refused to actually live up to.

Eventually he couldn't take the silence any longer. He never had been good with stillness.

"How did you find me?" The _I didn't think anyone knew this room existed, since I discovered it, completely abandoned in fourth year_ was implied.

"When you didn't show up for dinner James asked me if I'd seen you. Since I hadn't, Remus told me where to look. It's nice you have a Second Rank Demon who looks out for you like that. Most of them wouldn't know where to find their assigned First Rank Demon if they were sulking. He seems to look at it as more than just a job."

"Oh, I missed dinner again?" Sirius tried to raise an eyebrow, but the way his face was still smooshed into his knee made it feel like he more just wrinkled up his face than did anything that conveyed his overwhelming apathy towards most things at the moment. He deliberately ignored the comment about Remus.

Regulus snorted and let him get away with it. "Again? You've been making a habit of this, have you, big brother?"

Dragging his head up from his knees to lean against the cool glass of the window, Sirius shrugged. He could just make out his friends tumbling outside into the freedom of their last few days of fresh air with no responsibilities. James was shoving Peter, Lily and Dorcas were still with them, and it seemed that Marlene McKinnon had joined them as well, arm linked with Dorcas in a way that Sirius could fully understand. Remus was trailing behind them slightly, and even from his distant vantage point Sirius could see that his shoulders were tense just by the way he was walking, stiff and upright like he couldn't get his spine to release.

When Regulus sighed overtly heavy and wrapped the glass next to Sirius' head with a gathered shadow that had been pooling by his knees, Sirius glanced at his brother, who was smirking at him, throwing sly glances outside, clearly having noticed where Sirius had been looking.

"Why aren't you out there with them instead of in here sulking?"

"I'm fairly sure they don't want me out there right now," Sirius mumbled, glancing back outside to see Remus settling down on the grass, watching and laughing while James produced the lump of rock he had been messing with for the past week, trying to heat up and reshape into the form of a Lily. He wasn't sure how Lily was taking the idea but given the fact that the grass around them suddenly caught fire, it probably wasn't too well.

"Well, you did make a right git of yourself earlier."

"Don't sugar coat it or anything, Regulus," Sirius hissed, frowning at his brother, who just smiled sweetly in return.

"Someone has to say it to you, and your friends are too nice to actually do it."

"I don't know, Remus is fairly good at pulling my head out of my arse."

"Good," Regulus replied, kicking Sirius' knee a little harder than was exactly friendly. "You should keep him around. Might be good for you."

"I don't think that's up to me," Sirius sighed, trying not to sound too desolate. He suspected that he failed, and the way Regulus was watching him, little lines between his eyes, corners of his mouth pinched, confirmed that suspicion.

"Maybe if you were a little less of a git they'd be less likely to storm off hurt, and you would spend less time skulking around feeling bad for yourself." Regulus shrugged, and turned to look out the window again, and Sirius appreciated the semblance of privacy to digest that comment. It wasn't anything he didn't already know.

Sirius shrugged, and tried for force himself to unfurl from his seat, stretching his legs, both knees popping loudly in the small room. "It seems to come naturally. I have no idea how to be anything else."

A shadow whacked him on the side of one of his horns, harder than was probably warranted, but not as hard as Sirius had expected. He felt it reverberate throughout his skull, making his vision blur for a moment.

"Get over yourself, Sirius. This 'poor me' act isn't becoming of anyone, never mind our next king. You really need to grow up a little."

"And everyone wonders why I think you'd make a better king," Sirius muttered, only realizing he'd never said any such thing to Regulus before when Regulus' eyes went wide, and he reeled back like he'd been slapped.

"What?"

"You would," Sirius sighed. "I'm too self-involved." He chuckled, dry and humorless, at the raised eyebrow Regulus shot in his direction. "I am at least aware of it." The gentle kick to his knee wasn't unexpected. "Besides," Sirius shrugged, "If I were to ever end up in charge I would dismantle the whole system, and you know it. The fact that our mother can't see it is just confirmation that she doesn't actually _see_ me. I don't think I deserve power just because I was born to the right people. And the fact that I would be terrible at it is just sort of proof of that."

Regulus was silent for a few minutes, and Sirius turned to watch out the window again. James had apparently sort of succeeded at shaping his rock, and Lily was trying to throw it at him, while Dorcas, Marlene, and Peter all laughed. Remus was nowhere to be seen.

"Ignoring the part where you seem to think that I would be any better at ruling than you would, because I’m not sure that’s true, I never would have questioned the system without you shoving it in my face all the time how wrong it is, what would you suggest, then, if you think the system doesn't work?"

Startling slightly, Sirius turned to face Regulus, biting at the corner of his lip and finding Regulus watching him, curious, but no judgement on his face. No one had ever thought to ask him that part before. He took a moment to digest the fact that Regulus hadn’t questioned the system before, first, before thinking about his answer. Because any time they had spoken about it Regulus had always sounded like he agreed with him, so he had assumed that Regulus was on his side in all of this. After a moment to process that, he thought about the question.

"I don't know, exactly," he started slowly, picking at the hem of his shirt. "I just don't think only certain people should be allowed to have certain jobs. I mean, can you honestly tell me that Lestrange would be good at – well any job he might get? And yet, as a Shadow Demon he'll probably end up some high-ranking official in some small town where he can spend his days abusing anyone under his jurisdiction, spying on lower Ranked Demons for Mother, and stealing from the coffers. Meanwhile, Remus is one of the smartest people I know, and would be an amazing professor, but just because he can't work with some elemental force or another he'll never even be allowed to even try. How is any of that fair, or even remotely helpful? Who wants to keep learning from Demons like Binns simply because he can blow air around a room instead of, say, talk to animals? What kind of difference does that actually make?"

"You've actually thought about this." It wasn't a question, although the raised eyebrow did tell Sirius that Regulus was more surprised than he wanted to let on.

"Don't look so shocked, little brother."

Regulus had the decency to look abashed, but he didn't look away, just shrugged. "You tend to spout off without really thinking about what you're saying. It's not a far stretch to assume you hadn't really thought this through."

"Yeah, well, I've thought about it."

"You know," Regulus started slowly, looking like he was picking his words through a thorn bush, finding them one at a time and handling them very delicately before tossing them out and seeing what they stuck to. "If you become king you could always change things. You'd have that power."

Sighing, Sirius squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then slumped forward, shoulders curling a question mark. It wasn't as if he hadn't had that thought himself. "I know, but I can't."

"Why not, Sirius?"

"What are you trying to get me to say, Regulus," Sirius snapped, wrapping his arms around his knees again.

Regulus sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm not trying to get you to say anything, Sirius. I was just trying to listen if you wanted to talk. But obviously you're not done being a git, so maybe I should leave."

"No, stay, I'm sorry," Sirius muttered, his voice small to his own ears. So small he was surprised that Regulus heard him, but Regulus just nodded, sharp, and settled back to watch Sirius again, little lines between his eyes.

It didn't take long for the silence to get so thick that Sirius had to fight to breathe around it, choking on the words that were fighting their way out of his throat under Regulus' unrelenting gaze. "Fine," he hissed, shaking his head and taking a deep breath that he had to struggle to let out again, stuttering on the exhale. "I'll never be able to produce an heir," he whispered, unwilling to look at his brother. “And I know it doesn’t have to be me, but as the king I’ll be expected to have one because I can’t force anyone else in the family to do it for me. And since Bellatrix has already been removed from the line of succession, along with her sisters just to be safe, that leaves me and you. It’s not fair to force it on you just because I can’t do it.”

Nothing. Regulus didn't answer, and Sirius wasn't ready to be alone with his thoughts now that he'd started. "I'm gay." The words hung in the air, stifling, uncertain, waiting for Regulus to decide how they fell.

"Yeah, I sort of figured that," Regulus chuckled, dry and amused. "What with the way you're always watching Remus."

Sirius felt his cheeks heat up, but he didn't deny it.

"How's that going for you, anyway?" Regulus snarked.

When Sirius looked up, finally, he saw genuine concern in his brother's eyes, masked by a smirk and a cocked eyebrow. Sirius was inordinately grateful that Regulus knew him well enough to cover his concern with mocking jibes.

"About as well as can be expected for someone who is always bollocksing things up," Sirius groaned.

"Yeah, well, Remus is too good for you anyway, big brother. But maybe you should consider apologizing anyway, just in case."

And with that, Regulus slipped off his seat, standing and stretching before strolling out of the small room, squeezing past Remus who was standing silently in the doorway.

Sirius sighed, and buried his face in his hands for the space of three deep breaths before looking up and meeting Remus' inscrutable look.

"How much of that did you hear?" he asked, stomach flipping over as he waited for an answer.

"Enough," Remus murmured, letting himself fully into the room and closing the door behind him.

When Remus didn't continue, Sirius realized he wasn't going to address any of the things he heard. Steeling himself to the anger he knew he deserved, he hedged a small smile. "I really am sorry, you know. I shouldn't take my bad moods out on you."

After a long moment in which he said nothing, Remus sagged a little. "I know you are," he said, and sat down next to Sirius, wrapping an arm around him and tucking him in to his side, so that Sirius could hide his face in Remus' chest.

It was uncomfortable, the angle he had to hold his neck not to skewer Remus with his horns was too sharp, and they were both still a little stiff with each other. But for now, Sirius was more than willing to hold his tongue and take what he was given.


	8. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One Day After the End of Exams

**_ONE DAY AFTER THE END OF EXAMS_ **

The carriages were stopped, ostensibly to let the newly graduated Demons have a chance to stretch their legs in the middle of the nearly four-hour ride, but Sirius was fairly sure it was actually because one of the Thestrals had spooked and slipped its bit.

Almost everyone was out, milling around and getting some fresh air after the stuffy carriage cabins, but Sirius refused to get out of the carriage. He didn't want to deal with everyone's excited prattle about the party they were all attending that evening. Remus had extracted a promise out of him on Peter's behalf that he would at least try and keep the griping to a minimum and let everyone else enjoy themselves. So far, the only way he had found to keep that promise was to limit his exposure to all the excitement that was flitting around like persistent gnats. Insubstantial enough that he couldn't swat them away, but overwhelming present, biting at what little patience he had left.

Regulus was curled up to his left, head resting on the carriage window, looking for all the world like he was sound asleep. Sirius knew better, but he wasn't about to break the illusion for his brother. If Regulus wanted to feign sleep, Sirius would let him. For now.

Remus, on his other side, actually was asleep, snoring softly, head tipped back, nearly drooping onto Sirius' shoulder, but not quite there yet. Sirius wasn't sure if he would rather Remus just slip over onto him, or stay where he was. Both seemed like torture.

After a few minutes of solid internal debate, Sirius slipped an arm around Remus' shoulders and gently tipped him so that he was curled against Sirius' side.

Outside the carriage everyone else was slowly making their way back to their own carriages, rest break over. Everything lurched as the Thestrals started moving again, slowly and unalterably towards Grimmauld Palace.

James raised his eyebrows, but didn't say anything, just flipped the page in the strange old book he was reading.

"His neck was going to hurt when he woke up," Sirius whispered, trying to justify himself, mostly to himself, and settling Remus more solidly against him from where he had shifted when the carriage jolted. There was a very good chance he wasn't convincing anyone else in the vicinity.

Regulus snorted, but didn't open his eyes, and Sirius was sorely tempted to kick him, except that would have meant jostling Remus, and he wasn't willing to do that, even to harass his brother.

"Oh, so you aren't asleep over there," James chuckled, still keeping his voice down so as to not wake Remus up.

"I wish," Regulus grumbled, stretching and kicking Sirius in the process. "Sleeping would be far preferable to watching my git of a brother unwilling to admit he's pining."

"Regulus!" Sirius hissed, groaning, his cheeks getting warm.

It was Peter who laughed, to Sirius' chagrin. "Honestly, Sirius, do you think you're fooling anyone? I doubt anyone in this carriage, at the very least, hasn't noticed."

The whine that Sirius let out was far too petulant for his taste, but he couldn't quite stop himself.

"Wh's goin' – " Remus trailed off, blinking blearily and swiping at his eyes, but not moving away from Sirius, who had loosened his grip, just in case.

"Welcome back," Sirius said softly, ruffling Remus' hair when he just turned and buried his face into Sirius' chest, squeezing his eyes shut and snuffling about, clearly not awake yet.

"Looks like you're not alone in that, at least, Sirius," Peter said, still laughing.

"Please stop," Sirius sighed, resigned to the teasing, but not sure he could handle it just then. He was tense enough as it was, heading home with his entire year, and not sure what his mother was planning.

He must have sounded more stressed than he thought, because the entire carriage went quiet, looking at Sirius, except for Remus, who still hadn't opened his eyes, but did give Sirius a subtle squeeze when he shifted to get more comfortable. Sirius fought back a groan, since he had been hoping that Remus had slept through most of that. Not that he didn't know, but things were starting to be comfortable again between them after that strange incident outside the kitchens at the beginning of finals, and he didn't want things to get tense again.

"So, who wants to hear about the book I'm reading?" James asked abruptly, looking around with faintly pleading eyes, just slightly wider than usual behind his thick glasses, and strangely bright.

Sirius nodded a silent thank you at him for changing the subject, and forced out a small smile that felt more like a grimace.

"Since when do you read for fun?" Peter asked, sounding more amused than anything.

James had the grace to shrug, while still grinning. "Since I found this old thing in a pile of dust and dirty clothes under my bed while packing. We must have smuggled it out of the library for some reason, years ago."

"And you kept it?" Regulus asked, lips twitching in what Sirius recognized as the face he made when he wasn't sure if he should be amused or outraged. It was a face his brother wore often around Sirius and his friends, as if he wasn't quite sure why he still spent time with them.

"Well, it was either that or return it and come up with some excuse as to why I had it. I'm fairly sure this came out of the restricted section."

"How did you even – " Regulus shook his head. "You know what, I don't think I want to know."

Peter just laughed, beaming. "Illusion Demon," he said, smug and happy for once.

"All right, I'll take the bait, what's so fascinating about this book, James," Remus grumbled, still not picking his head up from where he was tucked against Sirius, who was having a hard time remembering how to breathe around Remus' hair, which was tickling his nose and being very distracting.

"It's about the Elder Gods," James replied, wiggling his eyebrows in what Sirius hoped was an intentionally ridiculous manner, because he refused to believe he was friends with a git who didn't know how ludicrous that made him look.

"What were we doing with a book about the Elder Gods?" Sirius asked, trying to think back and drawing a blank.

"I think it was when we were trying to research the history of the grounds," Remus drawled, still sounding sleepy, but more alert than he had been a few minutes earlier.

"Right!" James nodded. "For the one where we wanted to move the walls around so the dungeons wouldn't open."

"You tried to move the walls?" Regulus snickered.

"Snape had been being a git, we wanted him to miss breakfast. Nothing too horrible." Sirius shrugged. "It was second year, though, so we didn't actually succeed anyway."

"You know he's not really that bad, right?" Regulus asked gently, frowning.

"Not that bad?" Sirius hissed. Before he could continue, however, Remus tightened his grip on Sirius, squeezing for a moment until Sirius was thoroughly distracted.

"So, what's so fascinating about the Elder Gods, James?" Remus asked pointedly.

Sirius ignored the snickers from James and Peter. He assumed they were at his expense, and he didn't want to give them any extra fodder.

"Well, I mean, most of them were pretty boring. God of growing things, god of weather, god of not starving to death, and so on."

"God of not starving to death?" Sirius snickered. Remus shook with silent laughter against him, but didn't say anything, and James ignored him.

"But this one god, Djolo, is just mental. Apparently, he grants wishes."

"How is that mental?" Peter frowned, leaning over James' lap to peer into the book. "Granting wishes sounds like an amazing god to get on the good side of."

"Except that he only grants one wish every fifty years, and to the person who makes the largest sacrifice to him."

"Then it's probably a good thing no one has ever proven the existence of the Elder Gods," Remus mumbled, sounding like he was dozing back off again. Sirius let himself card his fingers through Remus' hair, and Remus didn't stop him.

"No one has ever disproven it, either, though," James added, slamming the heavy book shut with a thud that made Sirius startle, even though he saw it coming.

"When do these wishes get granted?" Peter asked, voice just a touch too loud, bouncing a little in his seat so that he jostled James' shoulder. James just looked amused, though.

"Careful there, Pete," Sirius laughed. "You don't want to sound too excited over the idea of ritual sacrifice."

"It's just a story," Peter huffed, but he stopped bouncing. "I was curious."

James frowned slightly then shrugged. "Today, actually."

"That's a little strange," Remus muttered, sitting up and stretching, bumping into the side of Sirius' head in the process, knuckles rapping lightly against right horn, making his head ring slightly. "Sorry," Remus whispered, just for Sirius, who nodded slightly, but didn't say anything and was already missing the weight of Remus against his side.

Peter's eyes suddenly got very wide, and he leaned into the window so he was practically pressed against it, nose pressed slightly to the left with the force he was leaning.

"Home sweet home, I presume," Sirius sighed, hunching in on himself a little and refusing to look out the window. "You know, it wouldn't surprise me if dear old mother had planned this whole party around the day of this horrible sacrificial god thing on purpose. Sounds like something she would do."

"Sacrificial god thing?" James snorted, shaking his head.

"You promised you weren't going to sulk today," Remus said softly, only the mildest bit of reprimand in his voice.

"I'm not sulking." Sirius dropped his forehead onto Remus' shoulder for a minute, the petulant tone to his voice both something he couldn't stop in time, and definitely not helping make his case for him.

"You kind of are," Regulus muttered. "Although, to be fair, you're also not really wrong about her. Doesn't mean you have to announce it, though. She'll most likely be on her best behavior tonight."

"Doesn't want to make a bad impression," Sirius replied, but he sat back up and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I'm trying."

Before anyone had the chance to reply the carriage came to an abrupt, shuddering halt.

"I guess that means we're here. No more chances to escape," Sirius said, shaking his head in an attempt to clear the fog of dread that was slowly settling over him.

"What were you going to do?" Regulus asked, mouth turning up at the corners. "Run off into the woods? Pretend you never made it here?"

"Nah," Sirius drawled, hoping he didn't sound as tense as he was. He did promise Remus after all. "Probably the caves."

"Caves?" Remus yawned, but looked more alert than he had since they started out the trip early that morning, all their belongings shipped off to their respective homes without them, some taken away by anxious parents, other sent by wagon to be delivered to waiting families, joined by the recent graduates in the next day or so after the party.

"Sirius and I found them when we were really little," Regulus answered. "I had forgotten about them until just now."

"Good," Sirius muttered, stretching, knowing better than to climb out of the carriage until one of the palace servants came and retrieved them. "Maybe that means our mother has forgotten about them as well, and I can have somewhere to hide if I really can't take her gloating any longer."

That was when the door to the carriage swung open, one of his mother's personal servants standing diffidently just outside, head bowed, shoulders tense. Sirius didn't recognize this one, and he sighed inwardly at how quickly his mother used and then dismissed servants. He rarely recognized any of them when he was forced to return home for any length of time.

Regulus slipped out of the carriage first, followed slowly by Sirius. James bounced out as well, looking extremely glad to finally be out of the small space. It was another few seconds before Remus and Peter followed them out, both looking around a little uncomfortably.

They were the only carriage that had emptied out, but the servants standing near each of the other carriages were watching closely, and as soon as Sirius and Regulus were both out they started to open the doors to the rest of the carriages.

"Don't you just love how subtle her pulling of rank is," Sirius hissed, dry and bitter, not really making it a question. The nearest servant, a young man who already looked so broken he was afraid to hold his head up in the presence of high ranking Demons, actually snorted, a startled little sound, half aborted the moment he realized he had started it. It didn't look like any of the other servants had noticed, so Sirius didn't call attention to the little slip of laughter, just flashed a tiny smile at the servant, so he knew that it was okay.

Soon all the carriages had been evacuated, and all the recent students were milling about looking up at Grimmauld Palace with a pervasive sense of awe. Sirius could almost understand it, from an outside perspective. The tall spires of black stone, the heavy walls fortified on three sides and backed against the river on the fourth. It was half palace and half fortress, and all imposingly impressive if you'd never seen it before. Sirius just watched on, resigned, as all his classmates were efficiently sorted by rank and sent in two separate directions. Even James and Peter were ushered off.

"Sirius, the Queen has instructed me to tell you that you may take whichever of these Demons is your personal servant from school to assist you in getting ready for the party," the young Demon who had opened the carriage door for them murmured, still unwilling to make eye contact.

"He's not –" Sirius stopped when he felt a hand on his arm.

Turning, he saw Remus shaking his head very minutely, and Sirius abruptly bit off his words, frowning at Remus.

"Fine, thank you, I know the way," Sirius muttered, trying not to sound as angry as he felt. He was angry with his mother, not the poor man delivering her words.

Without waiting for a reply, and not even sure he would have got one, Sirius turned and headed for the palace, the heavy sense of dread growing rapidly, weighing down his steps. Remus was following close behind, just a step or two back with a deferential air that Sirius had never seen out of him. Thankfully no one followed them, and soon they were alone, footsteps echoing through the wide halls.

As soon as he was sure they wouldn't be overheard, Sirius stopped, turning around to face Remus, trying not to snap at him. "Why do you keep stopping me from standing up for you, Remus? This time I wasn't even overstepping and talking for you, just stating a fact."

"Sirius," Remus sighed, stopping walking as well, and leaning against the wall next to where Sirius was standing, looking exhausted. "It's not a fact, not according to the rest of the world. It's just what you want. And this time, it would have made things worse. If they think I'm your servant I can come with you instead of being sent off to the kitchens or some such with the rest of the Second Rank Demons here. I'd rather go with you."

Sirius sagged at that, all his arguments drained away. "Yeah, I'd rather you come with me, too," he said softly, running his fingers through his hair, getting them tangled up in the knots he had never bothered to deal with before they started traveling.

"Besides," Remus added, smiling a tiny little smile through the weariness on his face. "Someone has to be able to handle your hair. You certainly can't do it."

"I'm actually sort of surprised that my esteemed mother doesn't have an entire regiment of servants to dress me to her exact specifications," Sirius shook his head and started walking again, making sure that this time Remus walked at his side, not behind him.

When he pushed open the door to his suite of rooms, the rooms he grew up in, that were colored with more memories that he wished he didn't have than any good times, he sighed. On the large bed in the center of the room, laid out in pristine fashion, was a set of dress clothes far more pretentious than Sirius had ever willingly put on. Brocade jacket, trousers slimmer than he was comfortable with, pointy toed dress shoes that he already knew he wasn't putting on, no matter what his mother said.

"Well, that explains the lack of hands on instructions," Sirius grumbled, kicking at the shoes. "I wonder why she still thinks I'm going to let her dress me up at her whim?"

"I don't know," Remus said slowly, looking at the clothes that had been set out for Sirius. "I think you'd look rather good in that jacket."

Sirius studied Remus' face, but he wasn't giving anything away, and finally Sirius just sighed and sank down on the edge of the bed, not bothering to take off his boots before kicking his feet up. Remus must have been more nervous than he was letting on, because he didn't say anything about Sirius' boots like he normally would have, just settled in behind Sirius, and started finger combing through his hair.

The information that there was a hairbrush in the drawer just to their right, in the bedside table, was burbling at the back of Sirius' throat, but he selfishly choked it down, enjoying the contact. When Remus' fingers ghosted over his temple for the second time, he took a deep breath, turned his head quickly and pressed a kiss to Remus' wrist.

Remus tensed almost immediately, the room stifling suddenly. "Please don't, Sirius," he whispered, not moving away.

The tremor in Remus' voice made Sirius' heart clench, but for the first time in seven years he had a chance to talk to Remus without the risk of anyone walking in on them for at least a couple of hours, and he wasn't letting this go. Not again.

"Why, Remus? And don't give me that bollocks about it not being allowed. I don't care what's allowed."

"And the fact that I asked you not to isn't enough?" There was an edge to Remus' words that Sirius wasn't used to, a growling depth that reverberated strangely.

Shoulders slumping, Sirius sank down huddling in on himself. "Of course it is, Remus. I would never ask something of you that you were unwilling to give. I just want to know why." Sirius hated how small he sounded, how pathetic he felt.

After what felt like interminable hours, but was more likely only seconds, Remus used the hand that he hadn't dropped away from Sirius' face to turn Sirius so they were nearly nose to nose, Remus still behind him, leaning over his shoulder so Sirius could feel his breath on his face. Resisting the urge to lean into the hand on his face, Sirius forced himself to meet Remus' eyes.

"Because I can't keep you, Sirius. Your stubborn insistence that you don't care doesn't change the fact that it simply won't be allowed. And I can't have you and have to let go again. I won't know how to not keep you."

Before he had a chance to second guess what he was about to do, Sirius used the arm that was still half wrapped around him to tumble them both over sideways, landing on the bed in a tangle of limbs, Remus spluttering. He didn't give Remus a chance to protest, however, simply leaned down and pressed his mouth very gently against Remus', hardly daring to breathe.

[ ](https://imgur.com/Jwg6esm)

As far as first kisses went, it was fairly anticlimactic, Sirius half expecting to get shoved away, Remus not moving a muscle. Just when Sirius was sure he'd made a horrendous mistake, Remus groaned, a sound half frustration, half surrender, and wrapped his arms around Sirius, sliding the fingers of one hand into Sirius' hair and using it to pull him in closer.

"You never," Remus gasped, pulling away, but only so far as to press little fluttering kisses along Sirius' jaw, making Sirius feel like his skin had caught fire and it was rapidly burning up all the oxygen in his lungs. "Listen." Another kiss at the juncture between neck and jaw, behind Sirius' ear. "To what anyone says."

The hand that was still in Sirius' hair gave a sharp tug, and the crackling pain that skittered across his scalp made Sirius let out a small whimper that he would have been embarrassed about if Remus weren't nuzzling into the part of Sirius' neck that that tug had exposed.

"You just do whatever you want, and bugger everyone else," Remus continued, just before biting down at the crook of Sirius neck and shoulder.

"Mixed signals," Sirius murmured just before tugging Remus back up from his neck so he could properly kiss him again.

The sound that Remus made when Sirius risked sliding a hand down to cup his arse made Sirius have to fight not to buck his hips. He still wasn't sure how far Remus was willing to take this, and he certainly didn't want to scare him off.

"I asked you to stop," Remus whispered, one hand sliding up under Sirius' shirt, fingertips skittering across his ribs and making him gasp. "But you just don't care, do you." It wasn't a question.

Taking a deep breath and steeling himself as best he could with Remus' hands still exploring his stomach, Sirius withdrew his hands and shifted back just a little bit. Enough that Remus had to either stop or follow him.

When Remus didn't follow him, but also didn't look at him, just nuzzled his face into Sirius' stomach, Sirius had to gulp air for a moment to be able to make himself talk. "I'm sorry," he started, voice stuttering a little. That, of all things, got Remus to stop and actually look at him, eyes a little glazed over. "I should never have kissed you after you explicitly told me not to. Because I do care. But you know me, sometimes I act without really thinking it through."

"Sometimes?" Remus snorted, and he looked enough like himself, sarcastic little twitch at the corner of his mouth, eyebrows up, no hint of the anger that Sirius was expecting, that Sirius felt he might even deserve this time, that Sirius felt some of the tension slide out of his spine.

"But now I need to know what you want from me, Remus. Not what you think you're supposed to want. What do you actually want?"

"I want you naked," was the immediate reply, no hesitation, no thought. It was so certain that Sirius groaned before they had even touched again.

"That is something I can absolutely do," he replied, torn between pulling off his shirt at Remus' request, or reaching for the hem of the shirt Remus was wearing and working on getting him naked instead.

Remus took the decision away from him, sliding his hands up under Sirius shirt, ghosting over his nipple and making him shudder before lifting the shirt all the way off. Barely waiting until the shirt was tossed aside, Remus leaned down and bit at Sirius' collarbone, trailing his mouth down far enough to take a nipple into his mouth.

Sirius yelped, arching up towards Remus' mouth, before he tugged Remus back up so that they were kissing again. Fuck, he'd fooled around a little at school, but nothing like this. It could never have been like this. This was _Remus_. That was enough to galvanize him into action, hands a flurry of movement as he struggled to get Remus out of his clothes without having to actually stop kissing him for any real length of time. Or at all. Ever. Sirius was quite certain he would be happy never having to stop kissing Remus for the rest of his life.

Eventually they managed to get all their clothes off, separating long enough to gasp in some air and struggle out of stubborn trousers, before going back to kissing, now a tangle of glorious skin on skin.

The first slide of their hips together had Sirius keening into Remus' mouth, one hand cautiously drifting down to grab at Remus' arse, using it for leverage to pull him in closer, the other simply fisting at the sheets for something to hold on to that he didn't have to be careful with.

Remus rolled his hips again, and Sirius' brain stuttered to a halt. Before he could talk himself out of it, Sirius used the hand that was fisted in the sheets for leverage and flipped them over. The little oof noise that Remus made, more startled than anything, made Sirius smile and kiss him again for a moment before drawing back and sliding down till he was settled between Remus' legs.

"Please say I can," he whispered, eyes catching Remus' and sticking there. He watched as Remus took the kind of breath that shook him all the way down to his toes, eyes wide, barely a ring of brown visible around his pupils. When Remus nodded, looking like words had deserted him for the first time ever, Sirius barely waited for him to finish before bending over and taking Remus in his mouth.

Remus groaned like all the air had been punched out of him, and his hips bucked. Sirius tried to let him, but he choked almost immediately and had to pull back.

"Sorry," he muttered, cheeks getting hot. "I've never done this before."

"You've never –" Remus choked off his words on a moan that had Sirius diving back down to try again, this time being a little more careful about how much he tried to take at once. He used his hand on what he couldn't fit in his mouth, and instead concentrated on being very thorough, rather than believing he had any sort of innate skill. He didn't want to make the same mistake twice.

Thankfully, Remus didn't seem to mind that he wasn't particularly good at this immediately, at least if the fingers that went and tangled in Sirius' hair could be believed. And Sirius made a point of always trusting Remus' hands, they were sure and steady and soothing, and right now they were tugging on his hair in ways that were going to have him finishing just from the incidental friction against Remus' ankle and the way Remus was pulling his hair.

Just when he was sure he was going to embarrass himself, Remus gave a sharp shout of his name, and his hips arched despite the way Sirius was leaning on them, and spilled hot and bitter on Sirius' tongue. He choked briefly, a little dribbling out of the corner of his mouth, but he just swiped it away and wiped his hand on the bedsheets, not caring how obvious it was what had happened in here. He didn't really plan on staying.

He was still hard, but that was almost secondary to the way Remus was panting and watching him with glazed, sated eyes. Sirius was about to give up on continuing, and curling up next to Remus, content to get to cuddle for a few minutes before they had to get dressed or risk someone coming looking for them, when Remus took on last deep breath and sat up, kissing Sirius for a far too brief moment, and then pushing Sirius down onto the mattress.

One thing became apparent very quickly. While Sirius had been enthusiastic in his efforts, he hadn't really known what he was doing. Remus, on the other hand, really _really_ did.

Instead of immediately taking all of Sirius in his mouth, he dipped his head and took just sucked in the tip of Sirius' cock, flicking his tongue lightly just under the head until Sirius was writhing and gasping just from that little bit.

It wasn't until Sirius started babbling, unable to help himself, staring down at Remus who was watching him while he worked Sirius over, that Remus took more of him into his mouth.

"Oh, fuck, Remus! I always knew your mouth would be the end of me, but I never realized it would be while you _weren't_ talking!"

A moment later, Remus did something amazing with his tongue, suction just perfect, and slipped one finger back to lightly ghost over Sirius' hole, the faintest brush of a touch, barely more than teasing at the idea of pushing in, and Sirius couldn't hold back any longer.

"Remus, I'm –" he didn't manage to finish that sentence, just got stuck in Remus' eyes when Remus didn't pull back, and finally felt himself go over the edge into a twitching mess of an orgasm that was unlike anything he had ever experienced before.

Remus flopped down next to Sirius, not quite touching, and Sirius reached to remedy that, wanting to pull Remus in against his side. The second he touched Remus' shoulder, however, Remus stiffened and pulled away, effectively killing the basking period Sirius had been hoping for.

"Remus?"

"Get dressed, Sirius. Someone will come looking for you, soon."

Sirius didn't reply, refused to. He didn't want to give Remus the chance to justify pushing him away again. Instead, he tried once more to get an arm around Remus, who simply rolled to the side and sat up.

"This doesn't change anything, Sirius. You want me, I want you, we still can't have what we want. I shouldn't have given in like that, but you're a temptation, and I'm selfish. Please don't make this any harder than it has to be."

Turning away, Sirius refused to watch Remus get redressed, each layer a barrier, shielding himself off again. Instead, he focused on grabbing up whatever mishmash of clothes that were in reach, the shirt and jacket his mother had put out for him, but his trousers and boots from earlier, not caring that they were rumpled from hours spent in a cramped carriage. Every piece of clothing he pulled on felt a little more like defeat.

Huffing, Sirius flung himself back onto the bed once he was as dressed as he was going to be, and started trying to tug his fingers through the tangled mess of his hair.

A hand came out and caught his wrist, gentle, cautious. "I could still –"

Sirius turned and saw that Remus looked almost as lost as he felt himself, and the hurt melted into something a little closer to resignation.

Nodding, Sirius turned back around so Remus could reach, but before there was so much as a single tug at the disaster he was sure his hair was, the door to the room banged open and his mother stormed in, face pinched.

"What is that still doing up here, and why aren't you ready, Sirius!" It wasn't a question.

Standing and putting himself between Remus and his mother's anger, Sirius drew himself up as tall as he could manage while baring the weight of years of disappointment, displeasure and anger mixed with the occasional full blown violent outburst.

Looking his mother in the eye and lifting his chin Sirius stared her down until she actually took a step back, the first such win he could remember in his lifetime. "You will not speak about Remus like that."

"He's just a servant, Sirius." The tone of her voice said more than her words how dismissive of that thought she really was, simply disbelieving that Sirius could even notice someone so below him, let alone speak out for them.

"You never did understand," he said, exhausted more than angry.

That's when he heard the first scream.

"What was that?" Sirius took a step back from his mother, pressing his back into the solid heat of Remus' chest, and he wasn't sure if it was more to protect Remus or to make himself feel better. Because screams in this place were never good.

Then there was a second scream. Followed by a third. Suddenly the screams were indistinguishable from each other.

"What have you done?" Sirius demanded, snarling in his mother's face.

"I'm going to live forever," was the serene, almost dreamy reply.

Sirius felt his mouth drop open, and he floundered for a moment for something to say to that.

Fortunately, he didn't need to come up with an answer, because she kept talking, meandering around the room, running her fingers over the edge of the wardrobe like it held all the secrets in the world. "I'm making the appropriate sacrifices, and Djolo is going to make me immortal."

"You're crazy," Sirius breathed, half hoping she didn't hear him. He reached behind him and wrapped his hand around Remus' wrist, not quite sure where this was heading, but not wanting to lose track of him if it got as bad as Sirius suspected it was going to.

"Of course I'm not," his mother said, sharp, words meant to draw blood, eyes slightly unfocussed, like she wasn't really seeing him. "But it's not as if I can trust you to rule correctly, with your bleeding heart and knowing the names of servants. They're just servants. Fodder."

A horrible suspicion dropped into the pit of Sirius' stomach, and he suddenly wanted to vomit. Sirius didn't want the answer, wasn't sure he could handle the answer, needed the answer. "That's who's screaming, isn't it? All my classmates that you were so insistent showed up today."

"Absolutely not. Not the Demons, I wouldn't hurt them. Just the servants."

"They're still Demons." Sirius wanted to shout it, but he didn't know what would tip his mother over the edge of whatever this was.

She just shook her head at him, frowning like he was a particularly naive and unruly child. Like he was still five years old and caught sneaking extra sweets before dinner.

"You used me."

"Of course I did. That's about all I can trust you to be useful for."

The fist that wasn't holding on to Remus connected with his mother's jaw before he had even realized he was moving. Her head snapped back and she crumpled into the wall, eyes focusing on Sirius for the first time since she had stormed into his room. Possibly for the first time in his whole life.

He could _feel_ the shadows collecting behind him, and he wasn't about to give his mother the chance to strike back.

Using the wrist he was still managing to cling to, Sirius gave a sharp tug, grateful when Remus simply let himself be pulled, and they quickly fled the room.

Once in the hallway the screaming was much more prevalent, and Sirius turned them in the direction it was coming from. "We have to do something." He kept running, taking turns and stairs randomly, barely noticing where he was going, simply moving in the direction of the terrified voices. More than once he had to turn around because what had sounded like the right direction had gone suddenly and horrifically quiet. The adrenaline spiking through him left Sirius feeling disoriented, and he was alarmingly aware that he barely knew where he was in what had been, in principal at least, his home for his entire life.

"Like what?" It was the first time Remus had spoken since Sirius' mother had interrupted them, sounding slightly winded, and more that slightly afraid.

"I don't know, but I can't just let people die because my mother has gone completely mental."

Remus didn't have a chance to argue with him, despite the look on his face that said he really wanted to, because a pair of guards appeared at the end of the hallway, not quite running towards them, but walking with the kind of purpose that had Sirius backpedaling, still dragging Remus with him.

"You need to come with us," one of them called, as if that were somehow going to make Sirius change his mind about running.

"Why are you helping her?" he called back, eyeing the stairwell off to his left carefully. "Slowly," he whispered to Remus, hoping that the guards couldn't hear him.

"Because it was help or be a part of it," the second guard replied, eyes briefly downcast. If they needed a weak link it was definitely going to be that one, Sirius realized very quickly. There was a lot of guilt in that one quick glance away.

Still backing up, Sirius watched carefully until the guards were just past the edge of the stairwell. Then, as quickly as he could, he gathered up all the shadows that a set of stairs can create, and lashed out, smacking both guards in the temple and dropping them. A fast check to make sure they were both unconscious, but still breathing, and Sirius turned to Remus, who was watching him with wide eyes, breathing erratically.

"We have to find a way to get out of here. Find somewhere to hole up while we come up with some sort of plan," Remus said, watching Sirius like he was waiting for the argument. And Sirius wanted to give it to him. How could he suggest they escape while people were dying. But he could see the logic in what Remus said. They weren't going to save anyone without a plan, and while dodging the entire palace guard.

"You're right."

The look Remus gave him said that Sirius didn't agree with him nearly often enough, at least when it mattered. "And now is not the time to act all shocked."

Remus nodded, and kept quiet while Sirius looked around frantically, trying to think of what the best way would be to get out of Grimmauld Palace. "It we go down," he said, thinking out loud, "we're likely to run into more guards. Probably ones that will be harder to deal with than these two."

"Which is why you should probably go up," came a voice from across the hall.

Sirius whirled around to see Regulus leaning against the wall, his lip bloody.

"What happened to you?" Sirius asked, rushing forward and wrapping an arm around Regulus who looked like he was about ready to collapse.

"What do you think happened? I was downstairs when it started."

"Do I want to know how bad it is?"

"Probably not," Regulus said, letting Sirius drag him over to the stairs, where he sat down heavily. "Fortunately, it looks like mother's," he paused and swiped his hand across his face. "Executioners, if you will, aren't terribly thrilled with their job. A lot of people have managed to scatter throughout the palace. I was helping them find hiding places, but the hunt was called off just a few minutes ago when mother swept downstairs and insisted that every available guard search for you. I'm assuming the bruising on her jaw has something to do with that decision."

There was no good answer to that, so Sirius just slumped against the wall. Remus came up beside him and slipped an arm around his waist. He wasn't sure which of them it was meant to comfort, but he was grateful either way.

"You need to get out of here before she has you killed. I truly think she would do it," Regulus said, looking a little glassy about the eyes.

"Come with us," Remus said.

"I can't," Regulus said, rueful. "I'm not up for the one way out that's left."

"There's a way out?" Sirius asked, trying not to sound as panicked as he felt, torn between getting Remus safe, and going back for James and Peter, and everyone else that was dying because of him.

"Up," Regulus repeated, giving Sirius a significant look.

Understanding hit all at once, and Sirius felt his eyes go wide. "Do you really think that's a good idea?"

"I think it's the only idea," Regulus answered, hoisting himself to his feet. "I'll go be a distraction. I don't think she's ready to kill both her children yet."

Sirius felt a little sick that that statement could suddenly be meant as seriously as it was.

"Don't get yourself killed, little brother. I'll be back for you as soon as we have a plan."

Regulus just nodded and turned back the way he came, a little unsteady on his feet, but determined steps keeping him upright.

"Come on, Remus." Taking Remus' hand, Sirius turned and lead the way up the stairs as far as they would go, then around another hallway and up more stairs, eventually breaking out on the top of the parapet.

"And how is this supposed to get us out of this mess?" Remus asked, edging his way out onto the roof and looking around with wide eyes. Sirius wasn't sure if he was afraid of the height or the situation, but either way it was going to get worse for both of them.

"Well, about that," he started, but didn't get the chance to finish. Rapid footsteps were coming up the stairs, and he didn't feel like waiting to see what the guards had been instructed to do with him. "Forgive me," he said softly, just before taking a running start and shoving Remus as hard as he could off the edge of the parapet.


	9. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still One Day After the End of Exams

**_STILL ONE DAY AFTER THE END OF EXAMS_ **

The water was picking up speed rapidly, and a surge sent a wall of water washing over Sirius' head. He came up spluttering, and barely holding on to Remus with the last of his strength. Using the last dregs of adrenaline he could call up, he reached out and finally made contact with the blue-scrub trees.

Letting out a cry of pure relief, Sirius used all the shadows he could muster to reach out and drag Remus to shore. He couldn't grab them both at the same time, and Remus couldn't keep himself above water. As soon as he was certain Remus was safely on solid ground and he could turn his focus away for a moment, he used the same shadows to help himself finish swimming to shore, collapsing as soon as there was solid earth beneath his feet.

A solid count of eight deep breaths was all he allowed himself, before he rolled over and held a hand in front of Remus' face. No air.

"Come on, Remus, you need to breathe for me." He turned Remus on his side and thumped him on the back a few times, hoping to force any water that might have been down his lungs to come up. Nothing. "Damn it, Remus, I can't lose you now." His vision was blurring, but he blinked it away so that he could focus on Remus, still and pallid in front of him.

Sirius knew there was a way to do this. A correct way to try and get someone breathing again. But he'd be damned if he knew what that correct way was. "Fuck it," he grumbled, gathering in some shadows and, wincing slightly at the invasion, forced them down Remus' throat until they hit the obstruction. Then, very carefully, he pressed out, as slowly as he could manage, trying to minimally widen Remus' breathing channels until he could force the water up.

It was almost impossible to concentrate on moving his shadows that slowly, and still manage to whack Remus on the back again, but he managed, just once, before the shadows fizzled out and flattened back into normal shadows. Thankfully, it seemed to be enough, because Remus started coughing and vomiting up water and bile.

"Thank fuck!" he gasped, pulling Remus against his chest, heedless of the vomit he was probably getting all over himself. The clothes were already ruined from the murky river water anyway. Remus was still coughing, and Sirius couldn't stop clinging to him.

They stayed that way for hours, days, probably only a few moments, before Remus straightened up, although not pulling away, and reached up with a shaky hand to rub a thumb across Sirius' cheek.

"I'm okay," he said, voice raspy and raw.

"You almost died," Sirius replied, only realizing that he had been crying because Remus was trying to wipe his face clean.

"But I didn't. And if we had stayed I most likely would have. I'd take this choice again if given the options."

Sirius didn't have anything he could say to make that better, because it was mostly true. Instead, he simply pressed his face into Remus' neck and breathed him in, still crying a little and shaking a lot.

Arms came up around Sirius, and he nearly collapsed into the embrace. Remus let him stay there for a few moments before finally drawing away slowly. "Come on, Sirius. We need to find somewhere to hide."

Sirius just shook his head and held on tighter, still trying to remember how to breathe properly.

Sighing, Remus pried himself out of Sirius' arms, and Sirius felt suddenly bereft. "How long do you think it will take for your mother to send a search party out for us?"

"Not long," Sirius said, begrudgingly.

Pressing a gentle kiss to the edge of Sirius jaw, Remus stood carefully, needing to lean on a nearby tree to stay upright. "Then we need to get moving."

When Sirius tried to stand fire shot up through his calf, and the ground swayed dangerously under him. "Fuck."

"Can you walk?" Remus asked, frowning at him.

"I don't actually know," Sirius said, sitting back down and peeling his torn trousers apart to reveal an oozing gash that ran nearly the length of his lower leg. It was deep enough he could have looked inside his own leg if he'd had the inclination to do so. He really didn't want to do so. "I must have hit the rocks on my way down."

"And you just noticed now?" Remus asked, sounding a little startled and a lot frantic.

Sirius shook his head. "I felt it when I hit the water, but I sort of forgot when I thought I was watching you die."

The tight look at the edges of Remus' eyes softened slightly at that, but he was still looking a little panicked. "We're going to have to bind it," Sirius said, pulling off his heavy brocade coat and looking for something to tear the lining out with. It was silk lined, and the silk would hold up for a few hours until they could come up with a better plan.

Remus held his hand out for the coat without saying anything, and Sirius simply handed it over, not sure what Remus was planning. After a moment the sound of ripping fabric loudly broke through the air, much louder than they had been speaking. They both winced at the noise, but when it was done Remus was holding out strips of lining silk.

Taking them one at a time, Sirius slowly wrapped his leg up as best as he could. As soon as there was solid pressure across the wound some of the pain let up. "It'll have to do," he said, tying off the last bit of fabric. "Help me up?"

A hand appeared in front of his face, and Sirius nearly startled at it. "I wonder how much blood I've lost."

"Enough that you said that out loud," Remus replied, sounding both amused and worried at the same time.

Shaking his head, Sirius accepted the help leveraging himself to his feet. He only swayed a little bit, so it would have to do. Remus wrapped an arm around his waist, and Sirius wasn't actually sure which of them was holding the other up, but they managed to find a precarious balance and started moving.

It was slow going, picking their way over uneven terrain, legs and arms getting scratched by dead branches and live thorns. The further away from the riverbank they got the darker their path got, trees thick and impeding. Sirius was hoping that if the trees were getting in their way, that maybe they would also impede their pursuers.

Sirius wasn't sure how long they had been walking, limping deeper into the vegetation, when Remus spoke. "Do you know if your mother has any Shifter Demons in the guard?"

"Sorry, I don't. She doesn't keep them around long enough for me to get to know them."

Remus just nodded and kept them moving forward as best as he could.

They crested a small hill and Sirius let out a quiet cry, taking the first deep breath he had taken since his mother had burst into his bedroom. "I know where we are!"

"Oh, thank fuck." Remus sagged a little harder against his side, and Sirius could make out a light sheen of sweat across his forehead, even in the dim moonlight. He stopped them for a minute so they could both catch their breath.

"If we veer just a bit to the south we'll hit the caves. I thought we had missed them."

"Caves?"

"Yeah," Sirius nodded, even though Remus wasn't looking at him. "Regulus and I used to play in them as kids, when we managed to escape for a few hours. I thought we had made it much farther, honestly, but at least they'll give us a good place to hide." Tightening his hold on Remus, Sirius straightened up as best he could, trying to find reserves he didn't know he had. "Come on. Maybe another half mile and we can rest."

Remus didn't say anything, but he did press against Sirius' shoulder for a second before they started moving again.

It took them longer than Sirius liked to make it that last half mile before he spotted the well-hidden crevasse in what looked like a smooth rock face.

"This way." Sirius pushed aside the violet strangling creepers to near impenetrable darkness inside the mouth of the cave, the moonlight not being strong enough to truly light anything. "It will be fairly easy to hide in here until we have a plan."

"I think we're going to need some sort of light," Remus said, refusing to follow Sirius into the narrow cave mouth.

Sirius shook his head. "If we make it a couple of rooms back through the caves there's a natural vein of Glowing Gneiss that's partially crumbled. Regulus and I used to collect baskets of it to use as lanterns. We should be okay."

Sirius felt more than heard the deep breath Remus took before nudging Sirius with his shoulder. Sirius took that to mean he should lead the way, and he let the vines fall back behind them, effectively cutting off what little light they had been getting.

"Are you sure you know where you're going?" Remus voice had a quaver to it that Sirius didn't like.

"Of course," he said, hoping not to be made a liar. The burning sensation in his leg was getting stronger, and he was suddenly afraid it wouldn't hold out until they found a little bit of light and could settle in to regroup.

Remus made a sound that Sirius interpreted as not believing him, which was probably okay, since he didn't really believe himself either.

They moved in glacial increments, not wanting to trip over anything or run face first into a wall, or low hanging section of ceiling, or a stalactite, or any Banshee Bats, or any other possible obstacles. It felt like hours before they had progressed even a few feet into the large cave, Sirius keeping one hand tight around Remus' wrist, the other in front of his face, slightly bent, so that he could feel for any sort of obstruction. The dry shuffling noises of their feet, too hesitant to pick them up while moving, were leaving Sirius a little nervous that they might be heard and caught, but so far no light had come bursting through the entranceway.

When Sirius' hand bumped into rock for the first time he barely contained himself from yelping out loud, startling enough that he jerked on Remus' hand, and Remus stumbled into him.

"Sorry," he whispered, trying to detangle them without moving any and running into anything else.

Remus simply squeezed his hand in reply, and somehow managed to stand himself back up with only a little jostling of Sirius and one thud into the wall.

While Remus got himself righted, Sirius felt along the stone face he had collided with and found that it was a gently sloping wall, not the pillar he had expected it to be.

"I think we've found the far side of the cave."

Nothing from Remus except quiet breathing, but Sirius didn't mind. The hush of the cave felt heavy, like he was walking underwater, smothering slowly while still able to breathe.

The urge to dictate his moves was strong, just for something to keep himself tethered, but he just tightened his grip on Remus' hand and slowly pivoted to the left, keeping his hand on the wall of the cave and trailing his fingers lightly, just to keep them attached to the edge.

There were more interminable minutes before Sirius found the first opening in the cave wall. "We're going to have to guess for a little bit now," Sirius said, trying to sound more confident that he felt. "It's the second tunnel from this direction, but Regulus and I usually had some sort of light to make it across the opening of the first one. We're going to have to hope we don't veer down the tunnel instead."

"Why didn't we come at it from the other side, then?" Remus asked, not even a hint of reproach in his voice, just flat curiosity tempered with a level of nerves that Sirius had never heard from Remus before. There was a quaver in his voice that Sirius didn't like, because he didn't know how to help.

"Because from that direction we would have had to cross three tunnels, not one. This cave has a really high number of offshoots heading deeper into the cave system."

"And how are you sure we made it across the cave into the right place to get the count correct, then?" Remus asked, voice rising slightly, words pinched. It occurred to Sirius that Remus was frightened. More than he had been when Sirius threw him off the parapet, more than he had been when facing down guards that seemed like they were looking to kill them both.

"Why didn't you tell me you were afraid of caves?" Sirius asked, hoping that Remus wouldn't notice he hadn't answered the question, because the truth of it was that he wasn't sure they were in the correct place, but he didn't want to scare Remus any more than he already was.

"I'm not afraid of caves, exactly," was the indignant reply, the small huff sharp and frustrated, although, whether with Sirius or himself, Sirius couldn't tell.

"If there had been a better choice I would have taken it," Sirius said, using the hand that was still tight to Remus' to pull Remus against his side, stopping moving for a moment so he could bump shoulders with him. He wanted to wrap an arm around him, even for a moment, just to ground them both, but he was terrified that if he let go of Remus' hand for even a moment they were going to get separated. It was a baseless fear, and he knew it, because if they were still touching they weren't going to get pulled apart somehow, but he couldn't make himself unclench their fingers.

"I know."

There was nothing to say to that, so Sirius just took a deep breath and started inching forward again. The second time he tripped over a pile of fallen rubble, however, he couldn't keep himself from whimpering through gritted teeth, his leg nearly buckling out from under him. The only thing that kept him upright was the hand that Remus was still clinging to, which Remus tugged on, hard, when he started to go down.

"Are you okay?"

"My leg isn't going to hold out much longer," Sirius said, resigned. "If we don't get through this cave soon I'm going to have to stop anyway."

"Well, then we should keep moving," Remus said, words brittle, crumbling rocks, trying to be sturdy and sure but breaking apart on the rough edges of their predicament.

"Yeah, let's go. It shouldn't be too much farther now." Sirius was no longer sure who he was failing to reassure. Probably both of them. He tried to move, but his leg gave out almost immediately, and this time he did fall, losing his grip on Remus' hand as he crashed to the ground with a full shout of pain.

"Sirius!" That one word reverberated around the cave, bouncing off walls and protrusions until it sounded like Remus was everywhere at once.

"I'm fine," he said, trying to keep his voice soft so that the echoes wouldn't bounce, as much for his own disorientation as to keep them from being found. Sticking a hand up, he felt around until he bumped into Remus' hip. A hand latched onto his almost instantly and squeezed until he could feel the little bones in his hand grating against each other. He didn't mind at all. "Just help me up."

The fingers intertwined with his own very slowly loosened their death grip, but didn't pull away entirely, instead sliding up Sirius arm until they were underneath his armpit. Once a grip was established there the second hand came down to grip him on the other side.

"On the count of three," Remus said, testing his grip slightly. "One." Sirius took a deep breath. "Two." Tensed the muscles in his good leg, his abs, his mental status. "Three."

Sirius felt his head start spinning almost immediately as he tried to hoist himself to his feet, Remus doing most of the work. He bit his lip hard enough to draw blood that he couldn't afford to lose while trying not to scream. It was starting to look like it wouldn't matter if his mother's guards found them, because he wasn't sure how much further he was going to be able to go anyway.

Once he was propped up on his feet, listing dangerously towards his good leg.

"Can you walk?" Remus asked, still gripping Sirius by the arms.

"Do I have much choice?"

Remus was kind enough not to answer.

Leaning heavily into Remus' side now, Sirius reached his free hand out once again and started inching them forward as fast as he dared, gritting his teeth and hoping he could keep going as long as they needed.

When his hand hit solid stone Sirius nearly fell again, the jolt shivering up his arm into his shoulder, pulling him up short. He used the wall to stop and lean, trying to catch his breath. "Well, we're across. It should only be a few more meters until we find the tunnel we want." His voice sounded reedy to his own ears, and Remus tightened his hold on Sirius without saying a word, or asking again if Sirius was okay. They both knew that he wasn't.

As soon as Sirius thought he could move again without passing out they started trudging forward, his fingers scuffing and cracking against the stone, probably leaving a clear path in blood for anyone to follow, if they had enough light to do so with.

He only stumbled twice more before his hand fell into empty space for a second time. This time he was leaning so heavily into Remus that he barely leaned a little farther into the open space. Remus, though, seemed to have tuned into his every muscle twitch, because that was enough for him to pull up and tighten his grip again, making sure that Sirius couldn't slip out of his grasp.

"Have we found it?" He asked, leaning in so that his breath tickled against Sirius' ear.

"Yeah, this way." Doing his best to simply pivot on his good leg, Sirius turned down the tunnel, and continued their long slog. "I wonder what's going on back at Grimmauld," he said, trying to distract himself as much as possible, but unable to come up with anything that wasn't at least as grim as their own situation.

"I can't even imagine," came the far too honest answer.

Wishing he hadn't said anything, Sirius held his tongue until they rounded a slowly sloping curve in the tunnel, and the faintest trickle of light started to seep through, almost blinding after their extended time in near complete darkness. Blinking hard, Sirius sagged into Remus' side, all the tension draining out of him until he could barely hold himself up, the relief at finding the light so great.

"Okay," Remus said, almost to himself, and then Sirius let out a small shriek as he found himself being lifted up without his permission, Remus scooping him up as if he weighed nothing at all.

"What are you doing, put me down!"

"You can barely keep yourself upright, Sirius, and I can see where I'm going now." It wasn't an answer, exactly, but it was said with enough bite to the words that Sirius clamped down on any arguments he might have wanted to make. Remus clearly needed this as much as Sirius did himself, so he let them both have it.

He quickly learned how terribly mistaken he had been when they broke through into a small cave lit by an extremely large vein of Glowing Gneiss, at least triple the size of the one he and Regulus had used to use as kids. "Well bugger," he hissed, dropping his head onto Remus' shoulder and hoping he could pretend this entire thing wasn't happening, even for just a moment while he caught his breath and tried to find his bearings again.

Remus froze up almost immediately. "What's wrong?"

"So, I might have got us just a tiny little bit lost?" It came out sounding a bit like a question, muffled into Remus' shoulder when Sirius refused to pick his head back up.

He expected Remus to be upset, hell, he was upset with himself. What he didn't expect was the slight sag to Remus, despite still carrying Sirius, and the slow exhalation that felt more like resignation than anger. "Okay. Okay." Remus tightened his grip, and Sirius wrapped his arms around Remus' neck, trying to take some of the weight off of Remus and help hold himself up. "We're going to have to stop, anyway, and regroup. Your leg won't hold out like this, we need to get it clean. We can worry about where we are later."

Sirius wanted to ask how Remus intended to do anything about his leg, since they had no water, no medical supplies of any nature, no fresh clothes, no choices. He didn't. He didn't want to voice just how much trouble they were actually in.

There was a pile of rubble just behind the dim light source, and Remus deposited Sirius on the cold ground behind it, making sure he was hidden from view of the cave entrance. Sirius sucked in a sharp breath at the jolt of hitting the ground, but managed to keep from yelping. Remus settled down next to him and slumped against his shoulder for a moment before straightening up.

"I know you want to just charge back in there and rescue everyone," Remus said, staring at the cave entrance over the top lip of the fallen rocks. Sirius eyed the stalactites that had fallen to create it, wondering if they were structurally stable. Remus wasn't wrong, but Sirius didn't say anything. It didn't need to be said. Remus wouldn't have said it if he weren't sure.

"I can't let you do that," Remus continued, still refusing to look at Sirius. Sirius wasn't sure if he was that intent on keeping watch, or if he just didn't want to look at Sirius. "I can't watch you die." It was said so softly that Sirius nearly missed it, even in the near silence of the cave.

He didn't have anything he could say to that, so he just reached over and twined their fingers together, squeezing gently. Remus let him hold on for a moment before pulling his hand away and taking a deep breath.

"I can clean that cut for you, if you want me to." There was an edge to Remus' words that made Sirius turn to really look at him. This time he was sure that Remus was avoiding looking at him.

"I will take anything you can do, right now. I can't go much longer like this and we both know it."

Remus nodded, sharp, brittle, then didn't move for a handful of long moments before nodding a second time then standing abruptly. Before Sirius knew what was happening there was a harsh cracking sound like snapping branches, and Remus was gone, and in his place was a large wolf, standing taller than Sirius' head height while sitting. He recoiled before he realized what had happened.

"Remus?"

The wolf nodded carefully, staying as still as Sirius had ever seen a living creature manage, watching Sirius like he expected him to try and bolt any second, hackles up.

"Well, that makes sense, Shifter Demon and all." Slowly, making sure Remus wasn't going to pull away, Sirius reached out and ran his fingers through the fur at Remus' ruff. Remus leaned his head into the touch, and Sirius slid his hand up and scratched behind one of Remus' furry ears until the tension slid out of Remus, and his hackles settled.

[ ](https://imgur.com/bJcnvdC)

With a huff Remus ducked down and nosed at the torn trousers tied flapping at Sirius' leg. Sirius took the hint and peeled back the blood-soaked fabric, untying the bandages they had put on hours earlier. There was a fetid smell coming from the wound, and the edges looked mucus green.

"Apparently river water isn't the best cleaning agent available," Sirius said, frowning, and trying not to let the smell coming from his leg turn his stomach. He didn't want to think about what would happen if he didn't get this clean soon.

There was a huff of air against his leg, and then Remus leaned down, very slowly, rolling his eyes to be able to keep eye contact with Sirius, who wasn't quite sure what was going on until Remus licked at the wound.

The first pass of rough tongue made Sirius hiss and stuff his fist in his mouth to try and keep from making any more noise than was necessary.

Remus pulled back and spit as well as a wolf was able, and it would have looked funny if Sirius hadn't been dizzy from the pain. He repeated the process a few more times before he stopped having to spit out whatever he was licking up and could just settle in and basically groom Sirius, who was losing the battle to not let a few tears escape mixed in with a whimpering sound that he wished he could deny later.

When the world started to go fuzzy and black around the edges Sirius didn't fight it, just let it pull him under.


	10. Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still One Day After the End of Exams

**_STILL ONE DAY AFTER THE END OF EXAMS_**

When Sirius opened his eyes he was alone. The dim, unwavering light from the Glowing Gneiss filled the entire cavern with just enough light that he could see that there was no Remus anywhere. It took a little work for him to leverage himself up to sitting, and even more work to get to standing, but after a quick test it seemed like his leg was at least taking his weight again. It was also rewrapped in the old bloody bandages, but it was better than nothing. 

"Remus?" 

Nothing. 

"Remus?" A little louder, bouncing around the cave and coming back to Sirius, still with no answer. "Fuck." He was slowly picking his way over the rubble that Remus had set him behind earlier, when he heard footsteps just outside the cave. 

Thinking it was Remus, Sirius leaned on the pile of fallen rocks taking deep breaths, trying to slow down his rapid heartbeat. 

Instead, he was suddenly facing one of his mother's guards, one of the younger ones that he didn't recognize. The man flashed a vicious grin, more a baring of teeth, and took a step forward, blocking the entranceway. 

The look that followed, however, was more relief than anything else. 

"Why are you helping her?" Sirius couldn't stop himself asking, frowning, but not feeling as threatened as he probably should. 

The other man shrugged and didn't move any closer, looking torn between wanting to get this over with and wanting to turn around and flee, his feet were shuffling in the rock dust, and his eyes were skittering around the room. 

"She's killing students. Students that are just like you, held down and told they aren't worth anything simply because of who they are. Why would you help that?" Sirius tried again, using the time to carefully prop himself up on his arm, leaning on the rubble so that it wasn't obvious that he was injured. 

"Because at least she isn't killing me," came the quiet reply. "When she first told us what she expected of us, Braden and Justin tried to rebel, she killed them both on the spot just to make sure the rest of us would obey. I'm not willing to die because I disobeyed orders. I'm sorry." 

"Me too," Sirius said, tense and trying not to look around for Remus. 

"Where's the wolf that was with you?" 

Sirius frowned. How did this guard know that Remus was a wolf? Unless he had been watching them for a while, from the dark, which was both a little creepy, and potentially hopeful. 

Doing his best to sound put out and a little hurt, Sirius huffed. "I have no idea. He buggered off while I wasn't paying attention. Probably hoping to save himself." It was close enough to the truth that Sirius hoped he could be convincing, and maybe Remus wouldn't be looked for. 

Little lines formed between the guard's eyes, deep enough that Sirius could see them even in the dim light, and then he _sniffed_ , leaning in the direction of the far side of the cave. 

"Hmm, you might even be telling the truth." 

"How did you find me, anyway?" 

"He could smell you," Remus replied from somewhere Sirius couldn't see him, just before the growling started. Before Sirius could turn around a large wolf came leaping over his head, colliding with the guard standing in the entranceway, who changed his stance like he was about to change shape as well. 

He never got to it, however, when the growling bundle of fur slammed into his side, teeth bared. They tumbled backwards, the guard, who Sirius felt he should probably know the name of yet didn't, trying to shove Remus off of him on the way to the ground. When they hit, however, all movement stopped. 

Remus immediately shifted back, stumbling away from the guard, face pale, eyes wide. 

"Remus?" Sirius shoved himself upright as quickly as his protesting leg would allow, and tried to reach for Remus, who shied away from him, wrapping his arms around himself. "Remus, are you okay?" 

Shaking his head in the negative, Remus tripped over a fallen rock and landed hard against Sirius' shoulder. "I'm fine." 

Sirius wanted to contest that, but he didn't have to. When he caught Remus he could see the unmoving guard over Remus' shoulder, the trickle of blood seeping out of his head where he landed on one of the many piles of rubble. 

"I – I didn't mean –" 

"I know," Sirius cut him off, not sure he could listen to Remus break down without spiraling into his own state of panic just then. 

"I couldn't let him try and kill you," Remus continued as if he hadn't heard Sirius, his breathing shallow and sharp. "I couldn't – I couldn't –" 

There were tears on Remus' cheeks, and Sirius wrapped his arms around him, leaning in and kissing him very briefly, more to try and jolt him out of the haze he was slipping into than for any real attempt at kissing. "Hey, it's okay, there weren't a whole lot of options here." What Sirius didn't say was that it was probably going to get worse before it was over. Remus nodded, but still looked pale, and his hands were still shaking where they were slowly wrapping around Sirius. 

Sirius wanted to let himself be held for a moment, but decided that it was probably a better idea to get out of there and find a new place to come up with a plan. A place that didn't smell metallic. Stripping off what was left of his shirt, Sirius piled as many loose pieces of the Glowing Gneiss as he could easily carry into it, creating a makeshift lantern. 

"There's a second entrance," Remus said, voice soft, eyes still on the body of the guard. "I was looking for some fresh water, I thought I heard it while you were unconscious." 

"How long was I out, anyway?" Sirius asked, not sure he wanted to know how much time had passed, and what was going on back at the palace while he wasn't even trying to help. 

"Only about an hour," Remus answered, not looking at Sirius but rather still staring at the slowly expanding puddle of blood. "But that's more than long enough for this to not be a safe place to hide anymore. We really need to get moving." He didn't move at all. 

"Are you sure we should be going deeper into caves we don't know?" Sirius asked, frowning, but tugging Remus away from the body and in the direction of where the wolf had leapt from earlier, anyway, just to get Remus moving again. 

"Probably not, but I'm also not sure how safe it is to head back out the way we came. We can't be sure that there aren't more of them out there right now." 

"We have to go back eventually," Sirius said, trying to sound steady. "We have to try and help. We shouldn't have run in the first place." 

"I had to make sure you were safe," Remus answered, gripping Sirius' arm, hard, and tugging him through a small crevasse in the wall that Sirius hadn't noticed before. Sirius didn't argue that it had been him trying to keep Remus safe, that he had put Remus' safety over every single other person in Grimmauld Palace at that moment, even James and Peter, and he couldn't really regret it. That didn't stop him from feeling guilty that he hadn't gone back immediately, though. 

They popped through the small opening and spilled out into a small tunnel, barely wide enough for them to fit through without having to turn sideways. Remus lead the way, still holding on to Sirius' arm, but there wasn't much leading to be done as the tunnel didn't seem to have any branches. It also seemed to be at a relatively flat slope, neither angling up or down, which seemed strange to Sirius. For all that the walls and the floor were clearly part of the cave, it felt like he could be walking down the hallway back at school. It was disconcerting. 

When the tunnel began to widen it spilled out into a small cavern and Sirius lifted their makeshift torch, glancing around. The ceiling was low, low enough that Sirius would have to duck in places, and the stalactites had started to merge with the stalagmites. 

"I took that one earlier," Remus said, pointing towards an opening to their left that Sirius hadn't seen. "It seemed to go down pretty quickly, and then it got too narrow for me to try and see if it ever came back up again, so we probably ought to try the other one." 

"Other one?" Sirius looked around, but he didn't see any other tunnels. 

Rather than answer Remus just tugged him off sharply to the right, and almost immediately through a tiny opening that Sirius could barely squeeze through. Thankfully, it opened nearly immediately into a wide flat tunnel that looked like it had been smoothed by generations of feet traveling through it. 

There were even notches in the walls for torches, small alcoves filled with Glowing Gneiss that were still faintly glowing. 

"This is weird," Sirius said, shaking his arm free from Remus' grasp, but sliding it down and linking their fingers together. Remus didn't pull away. "This is weird, right?" 

"It's definitely weird," Remus answered, step slowing but not stopping. Sirius wasn't sure if he was glad for Remus' determination or dreading what it brought, but he allowed himself to be propelled along. 

Sirius looked around, frowning, then reached out his free hand and trailed it along the wall of the tunnel for a moment, finding it smooth and slightly damp. "I think this tunnel was made, Remus," he said softly, unwilling to voice the slowly growing dread over what that might mean. 

"I believe you're right," was the answer, just before they tumbled out the end of the tunnel, nearly tripping over the raised lip of what looked like a dais that had a series of steps up to a large flat slab of stone almost like a table. The room was large and looked like it had been carved out carefully and precisely into a concise domed circle ringed with stone benches around the far half. 

Lifting his makeshift torch, Sirius took a cautious step into the room, Remus trailing behind him, grip on Sirius' hand almost crushingly tight. The strange table at the center of the room was stained a dark muddy color that looked nearly black in the dim light, and Sirius recoiled when he realized that it was thicker in some places than others, and that it appeared to have pooled beneath the stone. 

"I think that's blood," he hissed, backing up and putting himself between the table and Remus as if the table itself were going to attack them. 

Remus sniffed, then coughed. "Yeah, it's blood. Smells old, though." 

"I'm not sure that's actually much better," Sirius said, not commenting on the fact that Remus knew the difference between the smell of fresh blood and stale blood. He wasn't sure he wanted to know how he came to know the difference. 

"Well, it means whoever was putting that blood there won't be coming back any time soon, so we're safe for now." 

"Are we? Or are we just wasting time until we have to go back out the front entrance after all. I don't see any other way out of here." 

Remus sighed and withdrew his hand from Sirius', turning away and slowly walking the perimeter of the room. "I know you're angry with me, Sirius, but we need a plan before we go charging into a place with a full regiment of guards that seem rather set on killing you. I'm not letting you die just because you have an overdeveloped sense of guilt over a situation that was entirely out of your hands." 

Sinking down gingerly into one of the stone pews to give his leg a rest, Sirius dropped his head into his hands. "I'm not angry with you, Remus, I'm just scared for everyone else." 

"I am, too." 

"Then why are we still sitting here?" 

"Because I'm more scared for you, you git. I love you and I'm not ready to watch you get yourself killed." 

"You –" 

"Yes, Sirius, I love you, too. That doesn't change anything and is really not the point right now." 

Sirius tried to stand back up again, to go to Remus, but his leg chose that moment to stop holding his weight and he crashed down onto the pew, knocking it off its base, the stone crumbling away into powder. 

"Are you okay?" Remus was next to him almost immediately, trying to haul him out of the rubble. 

"Yeah, as okay as I have been since my mother lost what little was left of her sanity, at any rate." 

When he tried to shove himself back up again, though, Sirius' hand landed on something that was decidedly not grumbling stone. Frowning, he pulled out a small leather-bound book, yellowing around the edges. 

"What's that?" Remus asked, dropping into a sitting position beside Sirius, heedless of the fact that he was sitting on a pile of jagged stone at the foot of what was looking more and more like a table used for sacrifices. 

"I have no idea," Sirius shrugged and flipped the book open, starting with the last entry. 

_I fear that after all this time even I am not safe. Cygnus has gone power hungry. Instead of the standard yearly sacrifice to Djolo to keep the city safe he has been making wishes. Abducting those who don't have an affinity for magic for additional sacrifices, hoping for grander and grander wishes. Even after he was told that those without magic were the same as those with, that we all evolved over the years from the same stock of people, some simply could do magic, while others couldn't. That the magic slowly changed them, but that essentially everyone is still all the same. That didn't seem to matter so long as he could justify sacrificing them for his own gain, at least to himself. Now I know too much. He won't let me live much longer. I'm going to try and escape, but I'm not so sure there is anywhere left to go that isn't within Cygnus' domain to wish for when he's willing to kill like this._

"Did you know that bit? About humans and Demons evolving from the same peoples?" Sirius asked, frowning at the little book in his hands. 

"I could have guessed it, honestly," Remus shrugged. "Be a bit hard for them to have children together, otherwise." 

Sirius felt his cheeks heat up and hoped that it was too dark in the cave for Remus to see it. Somehow, that had never occurred to him. He had been raised to believe that Demons and humans were completely different species, and for all his thinking that they should be treated the same, apparently he didn't really think they _were_ the same. 

"Okay," Sirius said, trying to sound like everything he thought he knew wasn't flipping upside-down in this little cave that still smelled faintly of dried blood. "But how does that work? I mean, most people don't even think different types of Demons are the same." 

Remus didn't answer for a few minutes, then he slipped the crumbling book out of Sirius' hands and started flipping through it, scanning the pages with a speed that Sirius had always been a little jealous of in school, not his reading speed so much, but his ability to skim through a page and find what he needed without having to read it. After a few minutes where Sirius really wanted to get up and just get out of this horrible place but managed to hold still just for the pressure of Remus' knee against his own, Remus stopped flipping and pointed to something that Sirius couldn't make out. 

"Apparently," Remus said slowly, still scanning the page as he spoke, "the writer seems to believe that once upon a time everyone was human, that some people had use of magic and some didn't, but that it wasn't that much of a difference until some of the magic users started to focus so hard on certain types of magic, breeding for it, that it became innate, slowly evolving into Demons." He shrugged and closed the book, standing up and slipping it into the waistband of his trousers. "I don't know if he's correct, but it does make a certain amount of sense." 

Not sure how that information could possibly help them, Sirius used his uninjured leg to haul himself upright, letting Remus help him, and then just nodded. He didn't have anything to say to that, instead just leaning over and kissing Remus on the cheek in a sort of apology, then turned and headed back the way they came, determined that no matter what, he was getting back into the Palace and stopping this, however he had to. Remus seemed to understand, because he just nodded and followed behind Sirius, still holding on to his hand.


	11. Chapter Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still One Day After the End of Exams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains a drawing depicting a bloody scene & violence.

**_STILL ONE DAY AFTER THE END OF EXAMS_ **

Using his shirt full of Glowing Gneiss to light the way, Sirius slowly made his way back to the caves he recognized. He only had to turn back at a dead end once before he figured out which tunnel he had accidentally taken in their dark flight into the caves. It felt like it had all happened days ago but was probably only hours. Remus followed behind without saying anything, although once he did put a hand on Sirius wrist to get him to slow down, sniffing at the air in a way that made Sirius think that maybe he could still smell with a wolf's nose in either form. He wondered how many times he had missed Remus doing that over the years.

It felt like it took them far less time to get out of the caves than it felt like it had taken them to get lost in them in the first place. Time had stopped meaning anything while they were underground. They tumbled out of the covered cave mouth and suddenly found themselves back outside under the now fully risen moon, a sliver up in the sky barely enough to light their way. It was less secure, but Sirius felt infinitely better than he had underground with slowly fading rocks as their only light source.

The trek back to Grimmauld Palace took longer than Sirius remembered from when he was a kid, and certainly longer than their flight from the palace had taken, since they had used the river for a quick escape. He dreaded finding out what had been happening at the palace while they were hiding.

They only had to stop once, when the sound of footsteps crunching through forest detritus drifted past, and they could overhear two guards arguing over who got the credit if they were found. They sounded more frightened than cocky, and Sirius wondered just what his mother threatened them with to find him. He was becoming more and more certain of what he needed to do by the minute.

"So, how do you propose we get back inside?" Remus asked when the palace was looming just in front of them.

"I haven't worked that part out yet," Sirius answered, staring up at the building that was supposed to have been his home for his entire life, but had mostly been more of a prison. "I can only imagine there are guards stationed at all the entrances."

"Even with how many she sent out to look for us?"

"I'm not actually sure how many that was," Sirius said. "We’ve only actually seen three of them so far. Most of them could still be in the palace."

"Well, that would be unfortunate," Remus said, sliding himself under Sirius' arm to take some of the weight off of his leg, which was starting to get worse again, although Sirius wasn't sure how Remus had noticed that in the dark while they were standing still.

With Remus helping to prop him up they slowly made their way around the outside of the building, looking for a way to get in.

Just when Sirius thought they were going to have to try and overpower a guard at one of the smaller doors, the door swung open and Peter slipped outside.

"Peter? What the fuck?" Sirius grabbed him by the bloody shirtfront and slammed him into the stone wall.

"I was coming to look for you two," Peter whined, hissing in a breath through his teeth when he hit the wall, Sirius pressing him, a fist still in the fabric of his shirt.

"This entire party was down to you, you set this whole thing up! How do we know we can trust you? She’s turned enough Demons to her side with threats and promises of safety, you could have been one of them."

"I just wanted a party," Peter slumped, "I didn't know anything about this."

"I don't know if I can believe that."

"Sirius," Remus said, sharp, brittle, exhausted. "Now is not the time. We can figure all of that out later, if you really feel like you must. Right now, we need to worry about surviving. Everything else is secondary."

Sirius wasn't actually sure that was true, but he let Remus pry him off of Peter anyway. Maybe he was just terrified and exhausted and over thinking things.

"I can get you to James," Peter said, still watching Sirius like he was about to explode, which probably wasn't as far from the truth as Sirius would like to pretend it was.

"How?" Remus asked, no hint of disbelief in his tone of voice, just simple curiosity, planning.

"The same way I got here," Peter answered, his voice still wavering a little, but he squared his shoulders and stared at Sirius for a moment before he changed shape with a pop and before them stood one of the guards. "I can just pretend I caught you, that should get us past any lingering guards in the hallways."

Thankfully, he still sounded like Peter, or Sirius would start to question if his mother simply employed a guard with all the same abilities as his friends. He was starting to feel like by the time this was all over, if he even managed to survive it, he would never trust anyone again.

"Do I even want to know what's been happening here?" Sirius asked, huddling close to Remus under the pretense that it would look like they were being herded along against their will. Remus flashed him a wry look, but let him huddle, even taking his hand again. Raising an eyebrow at the handholding, Peter started walking, sort of shuffling them along in front of him.

"Well, the guards swept in on the party preparations pretty quickly," Peter said, voice soft so they wouldn't be overheard, or just because it was hard to say, Sirius couldn't guess which. "Most of us scattered. There weren't nearly enough of them to get all of us at once, and Lily melted a few door locks so the bulk of us could get out of the kitchens where they had us working."

"What was Lily doing in the kitchens?" Sirius asked, startled. Lily wasn't a serving class Demon, she would have been with the rest of the First Ranked Demons waiting for the party to begin.

"Apparently the place where the party goers were waiting wasn't far enough away to keep them from hearing the screaming," Peter answered, steering them down a flight of stairs followed by a sharp left. Sirius remembered hearing the screaming all the way from his bedrooms and wasn't surprised. "She and James and a few of the others came to help."

"Do you know how many got away?" Remus asked, squeezing Sirius' hand and sounding a little like he was going to be sick.

"We've been pretty scattered," Peter said, clapping a hand on Sirius' shoulder and squeezing, before using it to turn them down yet another corridor. "There were a lot of dead before I got out, though. And I know they've captured at least a few more since then. They've had the place pretty well locked down. That's why I was coming to look for you. Regulus suggested that you might know more ways out of here than he did. Apparently, you were prone to sneaking out as a child?"

Sirius ignored the question in favor of turning to Remus who had stopped walking. Peter walked into their backs and they all stumbled forward slightly, Sirius managing to keep Remus from falling over, despite protests from his leg.

"Remus?"

"I can smell it," Remus whispered, eyes wide, hands shaking. "There's so much blood. There has to be, normally I couldn't smell it from a different room. I can't even imagine how much blood there has to be for it to smell out here."

"Come on," Sirius said, wrapping an arm around Remus' shoulders, façade of prisoners be damned. "It's time to end this."

Meanwhile, Peter had been knocking on a solid stone wall in a series of repeating threes. After a moment the wall started to glow white hot and a chunk of the stone melted away revealing James and Lily on the other side combining their abilities to melt the wall.

Lily ushered them through into a small room that didn't appear to have any doors, while James held the molten stone in a small contained puddle so they could slip past it without getting burned. Once they were on the other side he slowly made the liquid rock flow back up into the open space and Dorcas came rushing up to freeze it solid again.

The room appeared to have once been a pantry of some sort, there were dry goods stacked all along the walls, shelves of cheeses and breads. As soon as they were once again enclosed in the solid stone room James flung himself on Sirius.

"You're okay! We had no idea what had happened to you. Regulus said you were running from the guards last he saw, and that was the last anyone had heard."

Remus snorted. "Sirius threw me off the tower."

It was the right thing to say, because James let go of Sirius to look between the two of them for a long minute. "And yet you're still alive."

"What? I threw him in the river. I'm not _that_ stupid."

"As touching as this reunion is," Regulus drawled, slinging an arm around Sirius and squeezing in a way that told Sirius more than any words could have that his brother had been worried. "We need some sort of plan or we're going to starve in here eventually."

"How did you find a room with no doors anyway?" Sirius asked, squeezing Regulus back, just a little.

"Lily burned up the door and James and Dorcas sealed us in the same way you just saw them do," Peter answered, looking like himself again, and sinking down to sit on a large bag of rice next to Marlene McKinnon who was crying softly, the Prewett twins and Stefan from the school kitchens. They were all huddling in the corner, bloodied but still breathing, Stefan glaring around him like simply being in the presence of Demons was too much for him to handle. He didn't try and go to Remus, though, and Sirius was grateful for that. He was too tired to be able to keep his mouth shut anymore, and they really had more important things to worry about than his still being jealous over someone Remus had once slept with.

"Do we know how many people are left out there?" Remus asked, leveraging himself under Sirius' arm and steering him towards a crate full of some sort of grain and nearly forcing him to sit with a hand on his shoulder. Sirius hadn't even realized he had been listing away from his injured leg until Remus took the weight from it.

"No," James answered, voice subdued, quiet in a way that James rarely was. "But not many, I don't believe. We've been sending out scouting parties ever hour, just nearby, hoping to find anyone left. We haven't been having much success."

"Some got out before they managed to close the doors down," Regulus added. "I think quite a few. At least, I hope so."

"There are enough of us here that we could probably just rush a door at this point," Peter said, looking around hopefully. "Lily could burn down any locked door and we'd be out."

Regulus shook his head. "The guards would be after us rather quickly if we tried that. Mother isn't going to let there be any witnesses to what she's done that aren't under her complete control. She's already killed three of the guards for not partaking in the slaughter."

"Besides," added Gideon Prewett, "We'd be leaving behind anyone who might still be alive out there, and I'm not okay with that."

"Me either," Fabian agreed with his brother. His face was bloody and there was a large gash running from his temple to his cheek, but it didn't look to still be bleeding. Sirius didn't want to ask how he had gotten it and still escaped.

"No," Sirius said as firmly as he could manage. "The only way out of this is to kill mother."

The silence that followed that statement was sharp and sudden, not even the sound of anyone moving. Sirius took a deep breath and held it for a second before letting it out slowly, breaking the silence. He had been thinking about it since he and Remus had jumped from the tower, but the more information he had the more he was certain this was the only choice they had left.

"Sirius?" Regulus whispered, a slightly panicked look on his face, eyes wide, face even paler than normal.

Remus simply laced their fingers together and squeezed, which earned them a frown from Stefan, followed by a resigned sigh and a slight nod. Sirius might have felt a little bad for him if he'd had the time and energy to devote to anything except surviving.

"Are you sure that's the only way?" James asked, crouching down in front of Sirius and Remus. "If she's dead that makes you king. Now."

"I know," Sirius sighed, running his free hand through his tangled hair. "It's everything I don't want. But she won't stop. I'm not sure when she slipped from slightly nutters into this level of insanity, but she's never been able to back down once she decides something, and the more ridiculous it is the more stubborn she gets. If I can save lives by accepting the inevitable a little sooner, well, it's only a few extra years of freedom. It was always going to happen."

James just nodded, looking sad and a little lost, but he squeezed Sirius' shoulder before standing back up, Lily wrapping an arm around his waist. Sparing a brief thought to wondering when that had happened, Sirius made to get up only to be held in place by the hand that Remus hadn't let go of yet.

"Are you sure?" Remus asked, turning to stare directly into Sirius' eyes, making him feel a little like the rest of the world was falling away, and for a very short moment he almost said _No, let's just run away from all of this together_ , but he couldn't. Not really.

"No," he said, shaking his head hard. "I'm really, really not. But I also don't see any other way to stop this, so I don't think sure has any place here. I think I'm obligated even if I'm not sure."

Remus just looked at him for a long moment in which Sirius lost track of everyone and everything around them, before nodding and leaning in and kissing Sirius. It was the first kiss Remus had initiated, save for their one tumble into bed together, and Sirius wanted to cry for how much he wanted it to last, but knowing they didn't have the time for that. When Remus pulled back, far too soon, he gave Sirius a wobbly little smile and leaned in to whisper in his ear, "Goodbye, Your Highness," before standing and walking over to join Peter against the far wall.

"Do you have a plan?" Regulus asked, cutting through the tension that filled the small room. Everyone else was watching him warily, like he might explode at them any second, and Sirius couldn't even blame them. He didn't feel particularly stable, and his hands were shaking, his heart was in pieces, and he didn't have the time to cry or scream or beg Remus to change his mind.

"I'm going to challenge her. Officially." Sirius was proud of how his voice only shook a little bit, and he didn't choke on the tears that were threatening to spill, a combination of broken heart and adrenaline. Closing his eyes and taking a couple of really deep breaths, Sirius got his head to at least stop spinning before he forced himself to stand up, leaning heavily on the wall to get himself there.

"That's suicide," James hissed, stepping away from Lily to grab Sirius' arm.

Sirius smiled, a baring of teeth that felt more like a grimace than anything. "Probably, but it's the best I have." He didn't wait to hear any more objections, just knocked on the wall and turned to James. "Let me out. It's time to end this."

For once, James didn't argue, just melted down the wall until Sirius could slip through, followed, to his surprise, by every single person who had been in hiding, even Stefan, who slid up beside Sirius frowning.

"Why are you doing this? She isn't killing your kind." It was the first time Stefan hadn't sounded angry with him, just confused, and Sirius sighed.

"Everyone is my kind. We're all people first."

"No one really believes that," Stefan said, brow furrowed like he was trying to make sense of Sirius.

"Sirius does," Remus said softly from off to Sirius' left. Sirius tried to smile at him for that but found he couldn't make it happen. Remus nodded at him, anyway, and slipped farther back into the group so he was no longer beside Sirius, and Sirius couldn't decide if he was glad about that or not. Remus was always a distraction, and right now he couldn't afford to be distracted.

Thankfully, they only ran into one guard, who Regulus easily distracted until Sirius could call up a small handful of shadows and immobilize her, wrapping a thick one around her mouth so she couldn't talk.

"We're on our way to stop this madness, you don't need to be afraid of her anymore. Nod if you understand me," Sirius hissed.

The young woman, barely older than Sirius himself, nodded frantically, and he removed the shadow from her mouth, but not the rest.

"She's going to kill us all if we don't find you and bring you back to her," she whispered, eyes rolling about like a spooked horse. "I don't want to die. I didn't want to do it. None of us wanted to do it. We just wanted to live more. Please –"

"Just tell me where she is and then get out of here," Sirius cut her off sharply.

"In the ballroom."

Sirius nodded and released the shadows. "Go on, get out of here. If you can't get out of the palace, hide until it's over. Pretend you never saw us, it'll be safer for you as well that way."

Without even glancing back, the young guard ran off in the direction they had come from, skittering around the corner and out of sight.

"That was risky," Dorcas said gently, but with a small smile. "She might alert others to where we are."

"She might," he conceded, "but since we're headed to where they would be taking us anyway, I'm not sure that the risk is all that great."

They didn’t see anyone else as they slunk through the halls, and Sirius spent most of the time fighting the urge to look back and find Remus, even though he knew that would be nothing but a distraction from what he needed to do.

When they reached the closed doors to the ballroom Sirius pulled up short, wrinkling his nose at the metallic smell. He wasn’t sure he was ready to see what was on the other side of the large wooden doors.

Putting a hand on the door and pushing he found that they were locked, or in some way barricaded.

“Lily, would you please be so kind as to burn them down?” he asked, not looking away from the doors, wanting to be ready for whatever was on the other side of them.

He didn’t get an answer, but a small flame sprung to life near his hand, and he pulled his fingers away just before the flames grew rapidly, engulfing the doors in a matter of seconds, much more rapidly than any natural fire.

As the last beams crumbled away and the flames flickered out, smoke dissipating, Sirius got his first look into what was once the palace ballroom but had become a sacrificial altar. The banquet table was covered in candles and strange runic carvings that he could see even from across the room, a golden idol of what he assumed to be Djolo set in the middle of the tableau, the table dripping with fresh blood.

Some of the carvings Sirius recognized from the cave he and Remus had found, and the idol looked the perfect size for the empty place that had been at the center of that stone altar. For a moment he wondered if his mother had found the same cave, and if that meant she had also read the same diary he had.

There were bodies scattered all about the floor and the smell was even stronger without the heavy wood to block some of it. The only thing that kept Sirius from vomiting was the fact that it had been nearly twenty-four hours since he had eaten. It sounded like not everyone with him was so lucky, but he didn’t turn around to see.

He tried not to look too hard at the bodies littering the room, he didn’t want to know which of his classmates had died today because of his mother. Because of him. He would find the time to grieve later.

“Well, well, Sirius, you came back I see. Hoping to save more of your worthless servants? What a pathetic waste of a child. You could have had everything, you know. All the power, all the wealth, anything you wanted. You just had to accept your role.” His mother’s voice came from the far end of the room, hidden in the shadows of the corner, and he didn’t want to waste the energy to see if the shadows were of her doing or not. He knew he was going to need every ounce he could spare if he hoped to survive this.

“You never understood that that was the one thing I never wanted,” Sirius replied, not bothering to make sure his voice carried across the room. Either she would hear him or she wouldn’t, it would make no difference in the outcome. “Well, you’re going to get what you want from me, after all,” Sirius said, raising his voice so that the acoustics of the large room were reverberating with it.

“And what is that supposed to mean? Did you bring me your little – friends – for my sacrifice? Have you decided to join me?” His mother stepped into the light, covered in blood, with a small smirk that made her look demonic herself, all dark and pale contrasts, like she was made entirely from her own shadows.

“Never. But I am going to take the throne from you, mother. I’m just going to do it right now.” Everything faded away, the smell, the bodies surrounding them, even his friends, they all became like a background hum. This was it. There was no going back now.

“Are you challenging me, Sirius?” His mother sounded almost delighted, laughing a little and taking another few steps closer. “How interesting. On what grounds?”

“The same grounds you used to discredit my cousin just to make certain your own child would rule after you. Insanity.”

She snorted, tossing her hair, which slapped wetly against her back, blood somehow having made it all the way to her hair and saturating it. Sirius refused to look at the ground and see just how much he was standing in. He wondered, briefly, if she had done most of the killing herself. She certainly looked like it.

[ ](https://imgur.com/nHopKl0)

“I am of perfectly sound mind, I just have no trustworthy heirs. It’s your fault I was pushed to this. If you had simply done as you were told I could have let you reign in peace. Instead you made me kill all these lesser servants just to make sure someone competent continues to rule.”

“They’re people, Mother, just like we are. We all come from humans. Some of us can just to very specialized magic, and some can’t. That doesn’t make them lesser.”

“Well of course we all came from humans, you stupid boy, did you really think I didn’t know that? I read the same book I can only assume you found. That doesn’t make them equal, though. We’ve were given the power many generations ago, so it’s ours now. You just couldn’t accept that, could you. You pushed and you disobeyed and you had your own thoughts and I had to kill all these animals to take care of it. All these deaths are on your head, Sirius. Yours.”

Sirius, who had been half thinking that himself from the moment this entire thing had started, reeled back like he had been hit, stumbling over a body, which turned out to be that of Elphias Doge. Sirius felt his stomach lurch, but nothing came up except bile, which he just managed to keep from spilling out. He couldn’t believe his mother so casually admitted that she knew that all the people she was killing were no different than she was, and that she didn’t care. Her complete lack of empathy at all made him nauseous, especially when paired with the thought that she was right, at least a little bit. This was at least partially his fault. He could have played the good son. Faked it until she was dead and then changed things that way instead of stubbornly insisting that he needed to do it now.

“That’s not true, Sirius, you know it isn’t!” Sirius heard Remus’ voice shouting at him, coming through the spinning in his head in a tinny, distant sort of way that became more focused as he shook his head only to realize that there was a covering of shadow already surrounding him. He reached into the shadow's core and pushed outward, blasting it away from himself and back towards his mother.

“You interfering, worthless little piece of filth! This is none of your concern!” His mother shouted, flinging a shadow towards Remus and striking him so hard that he flew into the wall and didn’t move.

There was a ringing in Sirius’ ears that it took him a moment to realize was his own wordless shouting as he clambered back upright, ignoring the searing pain in his leg, and grabbed, not at the large shadow directly to his mother’s left, but at every little shadow from every nook and cranny in the room until they pooled under her feet and then he lifted, flinging her backwards to land hard beside the table turned altar.

She stood up, spitting blood, and Sirius felt his legs swept out from under him before he had a chance to react, but as he was going down rather than brace his fall he lashed out with a thin strand of shadow, slicing his mother open down her shoulder and across her chest. She didn’t so much as groan.

Sirius couldn’t get himself back to his feet fast enough, and he felt a shadow worm its way into the slash on his leg and start widening it, greenish puss oozing out like a burst blister down nearly the length of his leg, good flesh tearing as the wound stretched beyond its limit. Screaming, he turned all his energy towards wrestling that shadow away from his mother, and because of that, he didn’t notice the one that crept up behind him and wrapped itself around his throat and started squeezing.

The world started to lose focus, and Sirius couldn’t even choke out a gasping breath. His mother came to stand over him, glowering down, the sun starting to rise through the windows at her back, casting her into silhouette. “You’re weak, Sirius. You’ve always been weak. After I kill you, the first thing I’m going to do is dispose of that.” She jutted her chin and Sirius just barely managed to turn his head far enough to see James and Regulus helping Remus to a sitting position. There was blood trickling out of one of his ears, but he was alive.

Calling up every ounce of energy he had, Sirius dispelled the shadow that was slowly strangling him. His mother’s eyes widened slightly, but that was all the reaction he got from her. He had been prepared to die for this, if he needed to, to save his friends, but he wasn’t about to let her hurt Remus.

The protective rage he remembered feeling the day Lestrange had punched him came washing over him, and suddenly the room went nearly black as every shadow from the creeping dawn descended upon them. Slowly, using his injured leg as little as possible, Sirius managed to get to his feet and begin advancing on his mother, who was slowly backing away, the whites of her eyes showing all the way around as if for the first time it occurred to her that she might not win this fight.

Her back hit the altar and still Sirius pressed forward, bringing every shadow he had down to bear so that her back was bowing, popping, and still he didn’t stop. “You should never have threatened him,” he hissed, just softly enough for her and only her to hear, before he dropped the full force of all those shadows at once, crushing her chest in one blow, blood slowly seeping out of her nose and ears. She didn’t move.

The shadows slowly dissipated once Sirius realized he had won, and he sank down onto the floor, heedless of the blood soaking into his trousers.

He barely had a moment to breathe, however, before the table altar cracked up the middle and the idol that had been sitting in the middle began growing.

Sirius scrambled back until he hit a wall, but still the idol grew until it nearly reached the ceiling.

“What is your wish?” The voice boomed, echoing, overtones making Sirius want to clap his hands to his ears.

“Wish?” He frowned. “What wish?”

“You made the sacrifice, you get the wish,” The idol turned towering entity, clearly Djolo, intoned, looking around like the entire thing was nothing more than a distraction. He stepped closer to Sirius and he didn’t leave any tracks in the puddles of blood.

“But I didn’t,” Sirius frowned, still on the floor where he had collapsed once the battle was over, his leg definitely no longer supporting his weight. “My mother did, and she’s dead.” Sirius expected to feel something with that statement, but there was nothing. No guilt, no dread, no fear, no sorrow. He assumed all of that and more would come once the adrenaline wore off, but for now all he could feel was a seeping sense of numbness and disbelief.

Djolo shook his head and a gust of wind whipped around the room. Sirius wondered if it was intentional or not but didn’t dare ask. “It is not the quantity of the sacrifice, but rather what it is that you are giving up. This amount of death was unnecessary as it didn’t mean anything to the one that caused it. The real sacrifice here was your willingness to kill your own mother despite not wanting to. Giving up your freedom against your will. That is the true definition of sacrifice. So the wish is yours.”

Sirius froze up, his head spinning for a moment as he looked around at all the bodies littering the floor. Unnecessary, he said. All this death. Unnecessary. Bodies of people he’s called friends over the last seven years. Unnecessary.

Remus was still leaning against the wall looking dazed, James and Regulus still hovering by his sides, Peter standing just to the side of them with Lily, and the rest of the survivors, huddled together still looking like they were going to end up as more unnecessary bodies at any moment.

Shoving himself to his feet as best he could Sirius stared down the strange god that had appeared before him.

“Okay. Okay. I wish –”


	12. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One Year After the Wish

**_ONE YEAR AFTER THE WISH_ **

_His mother was standing over him as he choked on the shadows swirling around his head. Every attempt he made to dispel them was fought off and he couldn’t breathe. He tried to stand, but his leg gave out and he couldn’t get off the cold, bloody floor. Somewhere behind him Remus was bleeding out against the wall, was possibly dead, and he couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything about it. He tried to scream but nothing came out._

_The burning in his lungs was getting more pronounced and his vision was swimming. It wasn't clear if it was from lack of oxygen or the shadows getting denser and denser around his head. There was no sound coming from behind him, and he couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Even his mother wasn’t taunting anymore, just glaring down at him as the world spun darker and he passed out._

Sirius rolled over in bed biting back a scream. His arm hit nothing but mattress and a mound of blankets, the bed too big and cold. The panic wasn’t dissipating and he sat up with a start, looking around frantically. He tried to climb out of bed, but his leg, still not fully functional even a year later, decided that this was going to be one of the days that it didn’t feel like holding his weight, and he tumbled more than stood, legs still twisted in the bedsheets.

“Fuck,” he hissed as he hit the floor, still bleary eyed from sleep, but adrenaline pushed him up from the floor anyway, and he spared a though for his ability to actually get up at all before he limped slowly towards the bathroom attached to his bedroom. Upon finding that empty as well he splashed some cold water on his face, hoping to wake himself up and get himself to focus a little.

His mother was dead, a fact that still made him feel guilty from time to time, but only in the familial sense. Nothing terrible could have happened inside the walls of Grimmauld Palace now that he was, sort of, in charge. He repeated that thought to himself a few more times while taking a couple of deep breaths. Things were getting better, despite his initial misgivings about being left in charge, somehow, he had been doing all right, even after a year.

**_SIX WEEKS AFTER THE WISH_ **

_Sirius was terrible at any of the organization things, and he was really starting to realize it now that his impending coronation was staring him down like a collapsing wall, threatening to crush what little sanity he had left on its way._

_As if he knew what Sirius was thinking, a knock came sharply on the outer door to his rooms, and James slipped inside without waiting to be invited.  In the last few weeks since Sirius had had to kill his mother and take her place, James had been the only person willing to treat Sirius like he was still Sirius, and it was nice to see him, even if it was mostly to keep Sirius from doing anything stupid._

_“I know, James, I know,” he muttered, not getting up from the bed, or bothering to get dressed.  “But sometimes I wish I had used that wish to get myself out of this.”_

_“No, you don’t,” James said, completely sure of that, and plonked himself down on the bed next to Sirius, bouncing a couple of times just to try and make Sirius smile._

_Sirius forced a small smile for him, but couldn’t muster the energy for more than that.  “No.  I don’t.  I couldn’t pass up the chance to try and fix things.”_

_“And how is that working out?” James asked, not looking nearly as snarky as Sirius expected him to be._

_Real change was going to be a long time coming. Sirius had started the process of removing nearly a dozen people from positions of power just in the palace alone. It was going to be a slow tedious process that probably took years, and possibly generations to start to balance out the power inequality that had been so blatantly misused for centuries._

_Well, Regulus had done most of the work. His knowledge of the serving staff was something that Sirius had always been a little in awe of, and was proving to be more than helpful in knowing who was worth their job and who wasn't. Sirius would have just thrown them all out and started over, but he did at least understand why that wasn’t really helping his cause any. Remus had made quite sure of that before he had slipped off, injured and dejected. There hadn't been time for Sirius to assure Remus that he wasn't sending him away, and Remus was proving hard to track down in the little bits of free time Sirius was able to scrape together._

_“I think you should probably ask Regulus, honestly, he’s done more than I have these last few weeks.”_

_James didn’t say anything, just sat and watched him until he felt like curling up in a little ball._

_“I admit, I have no idea what I’m doing, James. I never did. I didn’t want to rule, so I didn’t pay any attention to what it took to do it. I’m going to make everything so much worse.”_

**_ONE YEAR AFTER THE WISH_ **

Sirius was still spending more time than he would have liked muddling about unsure as to what he was doing, but since James had talked him into not walking out on the position he had literally killed to take he was sort of stuck with it. At least he was learning, albeit slowly. And at least he had help now. A council formed half from his friends and half from people that had been chosen specifically for their ability in the job. He had never met most of them before. Just put out a call for people to come tell him why they should deserve a chance to help him fix the mess his family had been making for generations. That had been James’ idea, too. Sometimes Sirius thought that he should have just let James be in charge. And then he remembered that James often forgot how to walk when Lily was around even though they had been together since that awful night, and he rethought that idea.

The cold water was doing nothing to calm his racing heartbeat, so Sirius stumbled back out of the bathroom and fumbled around in the wardrobe for his dressing gown, not bothering with any lights, just in case. He shivered even though it wasn’t that cold, the chill that ran down his spine leaving him shaking slightly.

The robe didn't actually help any, and Sirius pulled it tight, wrapping it around himself like a shield. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was still suffocating, although he felt like that most days, sitting in the council room trying to pretend he knew what he was doing.

He wanted to get up, go wander until he felt a little more settled in his skin, but his leg wasn't behaving very well and he wasn't sure how far he would make it before he had to sit on the floor in the middle of the palace, and then he'd probably be escorted back to his rooms by well-meaning security guards who believed that his mother's old supporters might try and kill him for is title.

Instead he sank back down on the bed and watched his hands continue to shake. The urge to cry was overwhelming, but he forced it back down. Everything was fine. A dream wasn't going to bring his mother back, and he was grateful for it.

It was still pitch black outside his windows, the sliver of moon not enough to see much by, but he didn't get up. It would be morning soon enough, and if he kept on like this he wouldn't be of any help in the council.

**_SIX WEEKS AFTER THE WISH_ **

_A weight dropped on his shoulder, and Sirius let James tug him into an awkward one-armed hug, made no less awkward by the fact that Sirius had refused the dressing gown, and was now mostly naked against James’ side._

_“If I could help you know I would. We all would, come to that,” James said gently. “You just have to figure out what it is you want help with.”_

_“Maybe that’s the part I actually need help with,” Sirius sighed, shrugging himself out from under James’ arm and finally reaching for his trousers, and successfully getting them on without having another mental break where he needed to stop and sit back down and sulk. He took that for the good sign it was, and tugged his shirt on, too, before sitting back down again, motivation mostly used up._

_“You’re going to have to figure out what you want fast, Sirius, because you only have about another hour until you’re king, and then it’s going to be much harder to back out.”_

_“What I want is to not have to do this. What I want is for everyone to already be equal, not have to spend years trying to figure out how to even_ start _fixing this. What I want is to be able to live my life for me, not for everyone else, preferably with Remus, but if he doesn’t want that, then still for me. I’m far too selfish to be king, James. And knowing that doesn’t fix that. If I have to do this I will resent everything and everyone sooner than I can fix anything. Can you help with any of that? Because I can’t see any way out, and I feel like I’m drowning.”_

_“Sirius, you literally killed your mother to take a throne you didn’t want just to save lives. That’s the definition of selfless.”_

_There was a moment before Sirius could say anything to that, fighting down the nausea that always crept up when anyone mentioned his mother. “That doesn’t negate the rest of it, or the rest of me. I have a temper, and I’m terrible at being in charge of anything. I shouldn’t be in charge of myself. That’s what I have – had – Remus for.”_

_James sad quietly beside Sirius for a long while before finally saying, “I think I have an idea. Get dressed and I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Sliding off the bed, James headed for the door before turning around. “Oh, and take those fancy clothes they put out for you back off. If you have to be king at least be comfortable doing it.” Then he let himself out and Sirius was left staring at the door for a minute before climbing off the bed himself, his leg still a little stiff, the scar tissue tight. He counted himself lucky that he only limped some of the time._

_Stripping back off the clothes he had just managed to get himself into, Sirius threw the trousers that had been picked out for him into a pile in the corner and slowly made his way to his wardrobe and pulled out his favorite pair of denims and a soft blue tee-shirt. James was right. The least he could do was be himself. It wouldn’t do to start on his new life only half comfortable in his own skin._

**_ONE YEAR AFTER THE WISH_ **

When his hands finally stopped shaking it was only because he had sat on them, trying to find a calm place in his head. It was eluding him, so finally he started pulling in shadows from the corners of the room and setting them to spinning, just to give himself something soothing to focus on. He had never been very good at calming himself.

**_SIX WEEKS AFTER THE WISH_ **

_He was just lacing on his ratty boots when the door opened again without even a warning knock. When James came back in he had Regulus, Peter, Lily, Remus, and oddly, Stefan with him._

_Sirius stopped short, nearly dropping back down onto the bed. It was the first time he had seen Remus since the wish. He had had to hear from James that Remus had recovered from the damage caused when he hit the wall. Regulus was the one to tell him that Remus’ absence was intentional, that he found it too hard to be around Sirius when he knew he’d have to give him up to his duties eventually. Sirius suspected that was inferred, not actually spoken, but he appreciated knowing all the same._

_All that flew out of his head as soon as he saw Remus, taking a couple of stumbling steps towards him before remembering himself and stopping short. Remus gave him a rueful smile and closed the distance, tugging at the ends of Sirius tangled hair as if the last few weeks had never happened._

_“You’re a mess, Sirius, doesn’t anyone take care of you now?”_

_Sirius wanted to cry, to fling himself at Remus and not let go. Six weeks was six weeks too long to not see him. He also wanted to yell at him for disappearing, but he knew that would be counterproductive. Instead, he took the comment for the peace offering it was surely meant to be._

_“That’s your job, you know I’m shite at doing it for myself.”_

_Everything went so still that there was a feeling of the entire room collectively holding their breath. No one else in the room so much as twitched and Sirius slowly lost awareness of anything that wasn’t Remus, who sighed and turned away. For a moment Sirius was afraid he had overstepped, misinterpreted the situation, but Remus just opened the drawer in the bedside table and pulled out a hairbrush._

_“Sit, Sirius, you can’t become king looking like birds have taken control of your head.”_

_“Good,” Sirius grumbled. “Maybe I should leave it like that.” But he did as he was told and sat down on the edge of the bed._

_The first touch of Remus’ fingers to his hair had Sirius closing his eyes. From the time they were eleven years old and Sirius hadn’t known the first thing about taking care of himself and Remus had simply stepped in and taken it upon himself to take care of Sirius this had been the thing that could always settle Sirius more than any other act. What had started as a necessity had slowly grown into an intimacy that Sirius had long ago realized he didn’t know how to do without._

_“I can’t do this without you, Remus,” Sirius said, deciding that if he didn’t voice it now he’d never have the strength to do it again. Ignoring the fact that there were other people in the room he leaned back so that his shoulder was pressed against Remus’ chest._

_Remus continued to brush his hair in silence._

_“I need you with me always, to keep me in line, to keep me grounded. You’re the stronger part of me.”_

_“Sirius, you know that isn’t going to be –”_

_"Oh, for fuck sake, Remus, the man killed the queen for you, you think you could at least give him a chance?” Stefan interrupted._

_Sirius startled and looked at him, raising his eyebrows._

_Stefan just shrugged. “I might not like Demons on principal, but you turned out to be okay. And even I can see that Remus is being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn.”_

_A low growl emanated from just behind Sirius’ left ear, but Sirius just smiled, even though Stefan looked a little startled and took a step back._

_“I think I like you,” Sirius said, trying to smile in Stefan’s direction but getting a little distracted by the way Remus tugged at his hair to get him to stop talking. “I don’t suppose you want to be liaison between Demons and humans, do you? I’m going to need someone to convince them that I mean it when I say I want them to be able to hold down real jobs that aren’t just servants jobs.”_

_“That’s actually not a bad idea,” James said from where he was leaning against the wall next to Lily, who was, oddly, holding his hand. Sirius felt his eyes go wide when he noticed that but James just shrugged a little helplessly and lifted Lily’s hand to kiss. She let him._

_“I barely trust that you mean it, and I watched you kill the queen just to keep Remus safe. I’m not sure I’m the best person to convince others,” Stefan said, frowning, but not turning Sirius down outright._

_“It wasn’t for me,” Remus hissed, the brush stopping as if somehow Stefan’s words were Sirius' fault. “I don’t know why you keep saying that.”_

_“Because she was going to win until she stupidly said the first thing she was going to do was kill you.” Peter shrugged and kicked the pile of Sirius’ clothes that he had flung earlier aside so that he could sit in the chair in the corner._

_“We did all kind of see it,” James added._

_“Give Remus a break, he was barely conscious at the time, so he missed my idiot brother’s grand gesture and near suicide in his honor,” Regulus drawled before flinging himself on the bed beside Sirius and kicking his knee. “But all that aside, James here said you needed us, so why have I been dragged away from breakfast?”_

_“I have no idea,” Sirius answered, looking at James._

_“Oh, right, so, you keep saying that everyone else would make a better ruler than you, so why not enlist help? I mean, you don’t have to do this on your own, Sirius. There are loads of people who would be willing to take a share of the work.” James smiled his most charming smile, the one he used to use when he was trying to get Lily’s attention, and Sirius wasn’t sure why he felt a little like he was being sweet talked._

_“You mean like a council instead of just me?” Somehow, in all his desperate dreams for how to get out of being king that had never occurred to him. He had wanted to escape so badly that anything that wasn’t a chance to disappear wasn’t in the realm of thought. “With First Rank Demons, Second Rank Demons and humans all on it,” Sirius added looking around the room at his friends. At the possible beginnings of his council._

_“Positions that have to be earned, not born into,” Lily added, eyes bright, head tipped to the side a little like she was envisioning it._

_"We'll have to send out notice that anyone who wants to at least petition to be on the council can come and do so," Sirius said slowly, leaning back against Remus who hadn't moved away despite the way the brush fell to the bed. "James, you're a genius."_

_James' face lit up, but Lily whacked him on the shoulder. "Please don't say that out loud, Sirius, or we'll never hear the end of it."_

_Sirius laughed, feeling lighter than he had since school had ended. Probably years before that if he was honest with himself. And it was starting to look like maybe it would actually turn out okay._

**_ONE YEAR AFTER THE WISH_ **

The door creaked open and Remus slipped into the room, bare feet making almost no sound as he stopped and watched the shadows Sirius was still spinning about. He dropped them almost immediately when he saw Remus, and he tried to get up to go to him, but his leg was having none of it.

Remus came and settled against his side, the bed dipping as he wrapped his arms around Sirius' waist.

"What are you doing awake, Sirius?"

"Nightmare. You weren't here, so I couldn't calm down." Sirius shrugged, not looking at Remus, not wanting him to know how often he still had nightmares about losing him that night.

"I'm alive, I'm here, your mother is dead, we're all okay."

Sirius really needed to stop trying to fool Remus. Remus always seemed to know what he was thinking.

Turning, Sirius buried his face in Remus' chest and let Remus play with his hair. It was the first time he had breathed correctly since he woke up. "I know. I know. Thank you."

"Any time, love," Remus said softly, kissing the top of his head.

"I don't know how I would have survived this last year without you, Remus," Sirius whispered into his chest. Remus slipped a finger under Sirius' chin, tipping his face up and kissing him gently.

"You would have been okay, Sirius. You were always going to be okay."

Sirius shook his head. "No, I might have survived. I might have been okay at this whole leader thing with a lot of training and help. I would not have been okay. I love you, and I don't want to think about the rest of my life without you in it."

"I suppose it's a good thing I'm not going anywhere, isn't it?" Remus asked, less of a question and more of a declaration.

"Yeah, it really is."

"Come back to bed, idiot," Remus said, tugging on Sirius' shoulder until they were laying back on the bed tangled together so that Sirius couldn't tell where he stopped and Remus started. He didn't try and figure it out.

**_SIX WEEKS AFTER THE WISH_ **

_"What do you think, Remus?" Sirius asked, trying to keep the tremble in his voice from showing through. "Does this sound like a good idea or should we just run away?"_

_"Run away?" Remus stiffened against his back, but didn't pull away, one hand tentatively sliding around Sirius' waist to hold on. Sirius carefully put his hand over Remus' and laced their fingers together. Remus let him._

_"Run away with me? Someplace where what we are doesn't matter. Someplace we can just be us."_

_Everyone else in the room had gone strangely silent, and Sirius was very aware of the fact that he was doing all of this with an audience, but he didn't care. He wasn't sure he was going to get another chance, so he was going to take his moment while he had it._

_"No place like that exists, Sirius." The tone of Remus' voice was wondering, though, not disapproving as it had been the first time Sirius had asked that question, months ago, still sitting on a bed together just like this._

_"Then I guess we're just going to have to stay here and make one," Sirius answered, turning around so he could finally see Remus' face. Remus surprised him, though, by sliding a hand up to his jaw and angling his face so he could kiss him, a soft, brief thing full of more promise than heat._

_”I guess I can live with that.”_

[ ](https://imgur.com/byhuEsE)


End file.
